Authurity And The Individual

THE REITH*- LECTURES

In July 1947 Sir William
General of the BBC, announced the establish-
ment of an annual scries of broadcast lectures,
to be kno%\7i as the Rcith Lectures,

Each year an acknowledged authority in a
particular field, sociology, literature, history,
public affairs, or economics, is invited to
undertake some study or original research on
a given subject and to give listeners the results
in a series of broadcasts. Such broadcasts are
intended, not only to be the peak of the
BBC’s effort each year in the field of series
talks, but also to become a valuable national
institution adding to the pool of knowledge
and stimulating thought through an ever-
widening circle.

Speaking of the decision by the Governors
of the BBC to name the lectures after Lord
Reith, Sir William said: “In the history of
British broadcasting there is one name that
stands above all others. What the people of
this country owe to tlie vision of tiae man
■•who first guided British broadcasting has yet
to be adequately assessed. His conception of
what broadcasting should strive after, of the

ideals it should serve and the standards it
should attain was one of the great social acts
of our time. Nothing could be more appro-
priate than that the most serious effort the
BBC has yet made to use broadcasting in the
field of thought should be linked wth the
name of its founder.”

AUTHORITY*
AND THE
INDIVIDUAL

BY BERTRAND RUSSELL

MustAN knowledge: its score and limits
HISTORY OP WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS
INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
THE ANALYSIS OP MIND
OUR KNOWLEDGE OP THE EXTERNAL WORLD
AN OUTLINE OF PHILOSOPHY
THE PHILOSOPHY OP LEIBNIZ
AN INQUIRY INTO MEANING AND TRUTH

POWER

IN PRAISE OP IDLENESS
THE CONQUEST OP HAPPINESS
SCEPTICAL ESSAYS
SlYSTICtSM AND LOGIC
THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK
MARRIAGE AND MORALS
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER
ON EDUCATION

FREEDOM AND ORGANIZATION, lSf4-l9l4
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
ROADS TO FREEDOM
JUSTICE IN WAR«riME

FREE THOUGHT AND OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA
THE PROBLEM OF CHINA

AUTHORITY:

and^

INDIVl-DUAIw

BERTRAND

THE REITH LECTURES
FOR l948-»

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN ® UNWIN LTD

FIRST PUBLISHED IN I949

This fcooi ts ce^ight
No portion ^ tt aaj he leproduceJ hp
ory pTOcesi tntJxNa wrRtm petmmion
Inanities shoutd be aJJnsseJ to
the pahh^a

PRINTIO IN ChlAT BRITAIN
la jj poM FerptttM tppe
BV UNWIN BROTIIBBS LIMITED
LONDON AND WOKtNC

PREFATORY NOTE

In the preparation these lectures I have had the
benejit vital assistance niy Patricia

Htissell, not only as regards details, but as regards
the general ideas and their application to the
circumstances the present daj'.

CONTENTS

LECTURE PAGE

I. Social Cohesion and Human Nature 1 1

II. Sofiol Cohesion and Government ij

HI. The Role Indmdualitj' 46

IV, The Conjhct o /" Technique and Human

Nature 63

V. Control and Initiative: their Respective

Spheres 88

VI, Individual and Social Ethics 107

LECTURE ONE

SOCIAL COHESION AND
HUMAN NATURE

The fundamental problem I propose to consider in
these lectures is this: how can we combine that
degree of individual initiative which is necessary for
progress with the degree of social cohesion that is
necessary for sunival? I shall begin with the impulses
in human nature that make social co-operation
possible. I shall examine first the forms that these
impulses took In very primitive communities, and
then the adaptations that were brought about by the
gradually changing social oigpnizations of advancing
civilization. I shall next consider the extent and in-
tensity of social cohesion in various times and places,
leading up to the communities of the present day
and the possibilities of further development in the
not very distaftt future. After this discussion of the
forces that hold society together I shall take up the
other side of the life of Man in communities, namely,
individual initiative, shoeing the part that it has
played in %'arious phases of human evolution, the part
that it plays at the present day, and the future possi-
bilities of too much or too little initiative in indivi-
duals and groups. I shall then go on to one of the
basic problems of our times, namely, the conflict

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

which modern technique has introduced between
organization and human nature, or, to put the matter
in anotlier way, the divorce of the economic motive
from the impulses of creation and possession. Having
stated this problem, I shall examine what can be done
towards its solution, and finally I shall consider as a
matter of ethics the whole relation of individual
thought and effort and imagination to the authority
of the community.

In all social animals, including Man, co-operation
and the unity of a group has some foundation in
instinct. This is most complete in ants and bees,
^vhich apparently are never tempted to anti-social
actions and never deviate from devotion to the nest
or the hive. Up to a point we may admire this un-
swerving devotion to public duty, but it has its
drawbacks ; ants and bees do not produce great works
of art, or make scientific discoveries, or found reli-
gions teaching that all ants are sisters. Their social
life, in fact, is mechanical, precise and static. We are
willing that human life shall have an element of
turbulence if thereby we can escape such evolutionary
stagnation.

Early Man was a weak and rare species whose
survival at first was precarious. At some period his
ancestors came do^^’n from the trees and lost the
advantage of prehensile toes, but gained the advantage
of arms and hands. By these changes they acquired the
advantage of no longer having to live in forests, but
on the other hand the open spaces into which they
12

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

spread provided a less abundant nourishment than
they had enjoyed in the tropical jungles of Africa.
Sir Arthur Keith estimates that primitive Man re-
quired t^vo square miles of territory per individual to
supply him with food, and some other authorities
place the amount of territory required even higher,
judging by the anthropoid apes, and by the most
primitive communities that have survived into
modem times, early Man must have lived in small
groups not very much larger than families — groups
which, at a guess, we may put at, say, between fifty
and a hundred individuals. Within each group there
seems to have been a considerable amount of co-
operation, but towards all other groups of the same
species there was hostility whenever contact occurred.
So long as Man remained rare, contact with other
groups could be occasional, and, at most times, not
very important. Each group had its own territory,
and conflicts would only occur at the frontiers. In
those early times marriage appears to have been con-
fined to the group, so dial ^ere must have been a
very great deal of inbreeding, and varieties, how-
ever originating, would tend to be perpetuated. If a
group increased in numbers to the point where its
existing territory was insufficient, it would be likely
to come into conflict with some neighbouring group,
and in such conflict any biological advantage which
one inbreeding group -had acquired over the other
might be expected to give it the victory, and there-
fore to perpetuate its beneficial variation. All this has

i

AUTHORITY AND THE tSDtVIDUAL

been very convincingly set forth by Sir Arthur Keith.
It is obvious that our early and barely human ancestors
cannot have been acting on a thought-out and
deliberate policy, but must have been prompted by an
instinctive mechanism — the dual mechanism of friend-
ship ^vithin the tribe and hostility to all others. As the
primitive tribe was so small, each individual would
know intimately each other Individual, so that friendly
feeling would be co-extensive with acquaintanceship.

The strongest and most instinctively compelling of
social groups was, and still is, the family. The family
is necessitated among human beings by the great
length of infancy, and by the fact that the mother of
young infants is seriously handicapped in the work of
food gathering. It yvas this circumstance that with
human beings, as with most species of birds, made
the father an essential member of the family group.
This must have led to a division of labour in which
the men hunted while the women stayed at home.
The transition from the family to the small tribe was
presumably biologically connected with the fact that
hunting could be more efficient if it was co-operative,
and from a very early time the cohesion of the tribe
must have been increased and developed by conflicts
with other tribes.

The remains that have been discovered of early
men and half-men are now sufficiently numerous to
give a fairly clear picture of the stages in evolution,
from the most advanced antliropoid apes to the most
primitive human bein^. The earliest indubitably

*4

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

human remains that have been discovered so far are
estimated to belong to a period about one million
years ago, but for several million years before that
time there seem to have been anthropoids that lived
on the groimd and not in trees. The most distinctive
feature by which the evolutionary status of these
early ancestors is fixed is the size of the brain, which
increased fairly rapidly until it reached about its
present capacity, but has now been virtually sta-
tionary for hundreds of thousands of years. During
these hundreds of thousands of years Man has im-
proved in knowledge, in acquired skill, and in social
organization, but not, so far as can be judged, in
congenital intellectual capacity. That purely bio-
logical advance, so far as it can be estimated from
bones, was completed a long time ago. It is to be
supposed accordingly that our congenital mental
equipment, as opposed to what we learn, is not so
very different from that of Paleolithic Man. We have
still, it would seem, the instincts which led men,
before their behaviour bad become deliberate, to live
in small tribes, with a sharp antithesis of internal
friendship and external hostility. The changes that
have come since those early times have had to depend
for their driving force partly upon this primitive
basis of instinct, and partly upon a sometimes barely
conscious sense of collective self-interest. One of the
things that cause stress and strain in human social life
is that it is possible, up to a point, to become aH*are
of rational grounds for a behaviour not prompted by

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
natural instinct. But when such behaviour strains
natural instinct too severely nature takes her revenge
by producing either listlessness or destructiveness,
either of ^vhich may cause a structure inspired by
reason to break doAvn.

Social cohesion, which started with loyalty to a
group reinforced by the fear of enemies, grew by
processes partly natural and partly deliberate until it
reached the vast conglomerations that we now know
as nations. To these processes various forces contri-
buted. At a very early stage loyalty to a group must
have been reinforced by loyalty to a leader. In a large
tribe the chief or king may be known to everybody
even >vhen private individuals are often strangers to
each other. In this way, personal as opposed to tribal
loyalty makes possible an increase in the size of the
group without doing violence to instinct.

At a certain stage a further development took
place. Wars, which originally were wars of exter-
mination, gradually became — at least in part — ^^va^s
of conquest; the vanquished, instead of being put to
death, Avere made slaves and compelled to labour for
their conquerors. When this happened there came to
be two sorts of people wthin a community, namely,
the original members who alone were free, and were
the repositories of the tribal spirit, and the subjects
who obeyed from fear, not from instinctive loyalty.
Nineveh and Babylon ruled over vast territories, not
because their subjects had any instinctive sense of
social cohesion with the dominant city, but solely

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

because of the terror inspired by its prowess in war.
From those early days down to modem times war has
been the chief engine in enlarging the size of com-
munities, and fear has increasingly replaced tribal
solidarity as a source of social cohesion. This change
was not confined to large communities ; it occurred,
for example, in Sparta, where the free citizens ^vere
a small minority, while the Helots were unmercifully
suppressed. Sparta was praised throughout antiquity
for its admirable social cohesion, but it was a cohesion
which never attempted to embrace the whole popu-
lation, except in so far as terror compelled outward
loyalty.

At a later stage in the development of civilizaj/ic,
a new kind of loyalty began to be developedj z lonitr
based not on territorial affinity or
but on Identity of creed. So far as Uie
cemed this seems to have originated -w'r^
communities, which admitted slaves oe .tntsf
Apart from them religion in ‘‘Str/A.-r

associated svith government rjT <4!-

religionists were broadly id'sxha! 'V'iii
that had groun up on 'jti p/..*

identity of creed has
stronger force. Its

played by Islam In the ‘ ""

eighth centuries.

Crusades and In il* .

centujy theoiogi^j
*osc of

■zut

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

with Spain, French Huguenots with England. In out
o\vn day t^vo widespread creeds embrace the loyalty
of a very large part of mankind. One of these, the
creed of Communism, has the advantage of intense
fanaticism and embodiment in a Sacred Book. The
other, less definite, is nevertheless potent — it may be
called “The American Way of Life.^’ America,
formed by immigration from many different coun-
tries, has no biological unity, but it has a unity quite
as strong as that of European nations. As Abraham
Lincoln said, it is “dedicated to a proposition.”
Immigrants into America often suffer from nostalgia
for Europe, but their children, for the most part,
consider the American vny of life preferable to that
of the Old World, and believe firmly that it would be
for the good of mankind if this %vay of life became
universal. Both in America and in Russia unity of
creed and national unity have coalesced, and have
thereby acquired a new strength, but these rival
creeds have an attraction which transcends their
national boundaries.

Modern loyalty to the vast groups of our time, in
so far as it is strong and subjectively satis^ing, makes
use still of the old psychological mcclianism evolved
in the days of small tribes. Congenital human nature,
as opposed to what Is made of it by schools and
religions, hy propaganda and economic organizations,
has not changed much since the time wlicn men first
began to have brains of the size to which wc arc
accustomed. Instinctively we divide mankind Into

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

friends and foes — friends, towards Avhom we have
the morality of co-operation ; foes, toAvards whom we
have that of competition. But this division is con-
stantly changing; at one moment a man hates his
business competitor, at anodier, when both are
threatened by Socialism or by an external enemy, he
suddenly begins to view him as a brother. Always
when we pass beyond the limits of the family it is
the external enemy which supplies the cohesive
force. In times of safety we can afford to hate our
neighbour, but in times of danger we must love him.
People do not, at most times, love those whom they
find sitting next to them In a bus, but during the blitz
they did.

It Is this that makes the difficulty of devising
means of world•^vide unity. A world stare, if it were
firmly established, would have no enemies to fear,
and would therefore be in danger of breaking do>vn
through lack of cohesive force. T^vo great religions —
Buddhism and Christianity — have sought to extend
to the whole human race the co-operative feeling
that is spontaneous towards fellow tribesmen. They
have preached the brotherhood of Man, showing by
the use of the word “brotherhood” that they are
attempting to extend beyond its natural bounds an
emotional attitude which, in ite origin, is biological.
If we are all children of God, then we are all one
family. But in practice those who in theory adopted
this creed have always felt that those who did not
adopt it were not children of God but children of

*9

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Satan, and the old mechanism of hatred of those out-
side the tribe has returned, giving added vigour to
the creed, but in a direction which diverted it from
its original purpose. Religion, morality, economic
self-interest, the mere pursuit of biological survival,
all supply to our intelligence unanswerable arguments
in favour of world-%vide co-operation, but the old
instincts that have come down to us from our tribal
ancestors rise up in indignation, feeling that life
would lose its savour if there were no one to hate,
that anyone who could love such a scoundrel as so-
and-so would be a worm, that struggle is the law of
life, and that in a world where we all loved one
another there would be nothing to live for. If the
unification of mankind is ever to be realized, it will
be necessary to find ways of circumventing our
largely unconscious primitive ferocity, partly by
establishing a reign of law, and partly by finding
innocent outlets for our competitive instincts.

This is not an easy problem, and it is one which
cannot be solved by morality alone. Psycho-analysis,
though no doubt it has its exaggerations, and even
perhaps absurdities, has taught us a great deal that is
true and valuable. It is an old saying that even if you
expel nature with a pitchfork it will still come back,
but psycho-analysis has supplied the commentary to
this text. We now know that a life which goes exces-
sively against natural impulse is one which is likely to
involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as
indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been.

io •

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a
point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and all
uncharitableness. They may develop strains of cruelty,
or, on the other hand, they may so completely lose
all joy in life that they have no longer any capacity for
effort. This latter result has been observed among
savages brought suddenly in contact with modem
civilization. Anthropologists have described how
Papuan head hunters, deprived by white authority of
their habitual sport, lose all zest, and are no longer
able to be interested, in anything. I do not wish to
infer that they should have been allowed to go on
hunting heads, but I do mean that it would have been
worth while if psychologists had taken some trouble
to find some innocent substitute activity. Civilized
Man ever)nvhere is, to some degree, in the position
of the Papuan victims of virtue. We have all kinds of
a^ressive impulses, and also creative impulses,
which society forbids us to indulge, and the alterna-
tives that it supplies in the shape of football matches
and all-in ■wrestling are hardly adequate. Anyone who
hopes that in time it may be possible to abolish war
should give serious thought to the problem of satis-
fying harmlessly the instincts that we inherit from
long generations of savages. For my part I find a
sufficient outlet in detective stories, where I alterna-
tively identify myself with the murderer and the
huntsman-detective, but I loiow there are those to
whom this vicarious outlet is too mild, and for them
something stronger should be provided.

21

AUTHORITY AND TJIE INDIVIDUAL

I do not think that ordinary human beings can be
happy without competition, for competition has
been, ever since the origin of Man, the spur to most
serious activities. We should not, therefore, attempt
to abolish competition, but only to see to it that it
takes forms which are not too injurious. Primitive
competition was a conflict as to which should murder
the other man and his wife and children; modem
competition in the shape of war still takes this form.
But in sport, in literary and artistic rivalry, and in
constitutional politics it takes forms which do very
little harm and yet offer a fairly adequate outlet for
our combative instincts. What is ivrong in this
respect is not that such forms of competition are
bad, but that they form too small a part of the lives
of ordinary men and women.

Apart from war, modem civilization has aimed
increasingly at security, but I am not at all sure that
the elimination of all danger makes for happiness. I
should like at this point to quote a passage from Sir
Arthur Keith’s Nav Theo^ of Human Evolution'.

“Those who have visited the peoples living under
a reign of ‘wild justice’ bring back accounts of happi-
ness among natives living under such conditions.
Freya Stark, for example, reported thus of South
Arabia: ‘When I came to travel in that part of the
country where security is non-existent, I found a
people, though full of lament over their life of per-
petual blackmail and robbciy, yet just as cheerful
and as full of the ordinary joy of living as anywhere

22

vx<

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE"

on earth.* Dr. H. K. Fry had a similar experience
among the aborigines of Australia. ‘A native in his
\vild state,’ he reports, ‘lives in constant danger;
hostile spirits arc about him constantly. Vet he is
light-hearted and cheerful . . , indulgent to his
children and kind to his aged parents.’ My third
illustration is taken from the Crow Indians of
America, who have been living under the eye of
Dr. R. LoAvrie for many years. They are now living in
the security of a reserve. ‘Ask a Crow/ reports
Dr. Lowrie, ‘whether he would have security as now,
or danger as of old, and his answer is— -“danger as of
old . , . there ws glory in it/’ ’ I am assuming that
the vrild conditions of life 1 have been describing
were those amid which mankind lived through the
whole of the primal period of its evolution. It was
amid such conditions that man’s nature and character
were fashioned, one of the conditions being the
practice of blood-revenge.”

Such effects of human psychology accoimt for
some things which, for me at least, were surprising
when in 1514 I first became aware of them. Many
people are happier during a war than they are in
peace time, provided the direct suffering entailed by
^e fighting does not fall too heavily upon them
personally. A quiet life may well he a boring life.
The unadventurous existence of a^wel^jJjgjj^jed
citizen, engaged in earning a
humble capacity, leaves

that part of his nature which, h^HJm'»^ftPQ,ooo

23

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

years ago, would have found ample scope in the
search for food, in cutting off the heads of enemies,
and in escaping the attentions of tigers. When war
Comes the bank clerk may escape and become a
commando, and then at last he feels that he is living
as nature intended Kim to live. But, unfortunately,
science has put into our hands such enormously
powerful means of satisfying our destructive instincts,
that to allow them free play no longer serves any
evolutionary purpose, as it did while men were
divided into petty tribes. The problem of making
peace with our anarchic impulses is one which has
been too little studied, but one which becomes more
and more imperative as scientific technique advances.
From the purely biological point of \iew it is unfor-
tunate that the destructive side of technique has
advanced so very much more rapidly than the creative
side. In one moment a man may kill joo,ooo people,
but he cannot have children any quicker than in the
days of our savage ancestors. If a man could have
5-00,000 children as quickly as by an atomic bomb he
can destroy 500,000 enemies, we might, at the cost
of enormous suffering, leave the biological problem
to the struggle for existence and the survival of the
fittest. But in the modem world the old mechanism
of evolution can no longer be relied upon.

The problem of the social reformer, therefore, is
not merely to seek means of security, for if these
means when found provide no deep satisfaction the
security will be throm away for the glory of adven-

24

SOCIAL COHESION AND HUMAN NATURE

ture. The problem is rather to combine that degree
of security which is essential to the species, with
forms of adventure and danger and contest which are
compatible "with the civilized way of life. And in
attempting to solve this problem we must remember
always that, although our manner of life and our
institutions and our knowledge have undergone pro-
found changes, our instincts both for good and evil
remain very much what they were when our ances-
tors’ brains first grew to their present size. I do not
think the reconciliation of primitive impulses with
the civilized way of life is impossible, and the studies
of anthropologists have shown the very wide adapta-
bility of human nature to different culture patterns.
But 1 do not think it can be achieved by complete ex-
clusion of any basic impulse. A life wthout adventure
is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adven-
ture is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure
to be short.

1 diink perhaps the essence of the matter was
given by the Red Indian whom I quoted a moment
ago, who regretted the old life because “there was
glory in it.” Every energetic person wants some-
thing that can count as “glory.” There are those
who get it — film stars, Famous adiletes, military
commanders, and even some few politicians, but they
‘U'e a small minority, and the rest are left to day-
drearns — day-dreams of the cinema, day-dreams of
wild west adventure stories, purely private day-
dreams of imaginary power. I am not one of tliose
af

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
who think day-dreams wholly evil ; they are an essen-
tial part of the life of imagination. But when through-
out a long life there is no means of relating them to
reality they easily become unwholesome and even
dangerous to sanity. Perhaps it may still be possible,
even in our mechanical world, to find some real out-
let for the impulses which are now confined to the
realm of phantasy. In the interests of stability it is
much to be hoped that this may be possible, for, if it
is not, destructive philosophies will from time to
time sweep away the best of human achievements. If
this is to be prevented, the savage in each one of us
must find some outlet not Incompatible with civilized
life and the happiness of his equally savage neighbour.

26

LECTURE TWO

SOCIAL COHESION AND
GOVERNMENT

The original mechanism of social cohesion, as it is
still to be found among the most primitive races, was
one which operated through individual psychology
without the need of anything that could be called
government. There were, no doubt, tribal customs
which all had to obey, but one must suppose that
there was no impulse to disobedience of these cus-
toms and no need of magistrates or policemen to
enforce them. In Old Stone Age times, so far as
authority was concerned, the tribe seems to have
lived in a state which we should now describe as
anarchy. But it dilfered from what anarchy would
be in a modern community owing to the fact that
social impulses sufficiently controlled the acts of in-
dividuals. Men of the New' Stone Age W’cre already
quite different; they had government, authorities
capable of exacting obedience, and large-scale en-
forced co-opcralion. Tills is crident from their
works; the primitive 1)^0 of small-tribc cohesion
could not have produced Stonehenge, still less tlic
PjTamids. The enlargement of the social unit must
have been mainly the result of w-ar. If nvo tribes liad
a war of extermination, the victorious tribe by the
27

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

acquisition of new territorj' would be able to increase
its numbers. There would also in war be an obvious
advantage in an alliance of two or more tribes. If the
danger producing the alliance persisted, the alliance
would, in time, become an amalgamation. When a
unit became too large for all its members to know
each other, there would come to be a need of some
mechanism for arriving at collective decisions, and
this mechanism \vould inevitably develop by stages
into something that a modem man could recognize
as government. As soon as there is government some
men have more power than others, and the power
that they have depends, broadly speaking, upon the
size of the imit that they govern. Love of power,
therefore, will cause the governors to desire con-
quest. This motive is very much reinforced when the
vanquished are made into slaves instead of being
exterminated. In this way, at a very early stage, com-
munities arose in which, although primitive impulses
towards social co-operation still existed, they were
immensely reinforced by the power of the govern-
ment to punish those who disobeyed it. In the
earliest fully historical community, that of ancient
Egypt, we find a king whose powers over a large
territory were absolute, except for some limitation
by the priesthood, and we find a large sen'ile popula-
tion whom the king could, at his will, employ upon
State enterprises such as the Pyramids. In such a
community only a minority at the top of the social
scale — the king, the aristocracy, and the priests —

28

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

all acquired unity as a result of military victoiy by a
ruler of some part of what became a single nation.

In antiquity all large States, except Egypt, suffered
from a Jack of stability of which the causes ivere
largely technical. When nothing could move faster
than a horse it was difficult for the central govern-
ment to keep a firm hold upon outlying satraps or
pro-consuls, who were apt to rebel, sometimes suc-
ceeding in conquering the whole Empire and at other
times making themselves independent sovereigns of
a part of it. Alexander, Atilla, and Jenghiz Khan had
vast empires which broke up at their death, and in
which unity had depended entirely upon the prestige
of a great conqueror. These various empires had no
psychological unity, but only the unity of force.
Rome did better, because Graeco-Roman civilization
>vas something which educated individuals valued and
which was sharply contrasted with the barbarism of
tribes beyond the frontier. Until the invention of
modem techniques it >v3s scarcely possible to bold
a large empire together unless the upper sections of
society throughout its length and breadth had some
common sentiment by which they were united. And
the ways of generating such a common sentiment
were much less understood than they are now. Tlie
psychological basis of social cohesion, therefore, was
still important, although needed only among a
governing minority. In ancient communities the chief
adN’antagc of great size, namely the possibility of
large armies, nas balanced by the disadvantage that

30

SOCIAL COHESION AND COVERNMENT

it took a long time to move an army from one part
of the empire to another, and also that the civil
government had not discovered ways of preventing
military insurrection. To some degree these condi-
tions lasted on into modem times. It was largely lack
of mobility that caused England, Spain, and Portugal
to lose their possessions in the Western Hemisphere.
But since the coming of steam and the telegraph it
has become much easier than It was before to hold a
large territory, and since the coming of universal
education it has become easier to instil a more or less
artificial loyalty throughout a large population.

Modem technique lias not only facilitated the
psychology of cohesion in large groups; it has also
made large groups imperative both from an economic
and from a military point of view. The advantages
of mass production are a trite theme, upon which
I do not propose to enlarge. As everybody know's,
they have been urged as a reason for closer unity
among the nations of Western Europe. The Nile
from the earliest times has promoted the cohesion
of the whole of Egypt, since a government controlling
only the upper Nile could destroy the fertility of
lower Egypt. Here no ad\'anced technique was in-
volved, but the Tennessee Valley Authority and the
proposed St. La^vrence Water Way are scientific
extensions of the same cohesive effect of rivers.
Central power stations, distributing electricity over
vvide areas, have become increasingly important,
and are much more profitable when the area is large

3 *

AUTHORrTV AND T/IE INDIVIDUAL
than when it is small. If it becomes practicable (as is
not unlikely) to use atomic power on a large scale,
this will enormously augment the profitable area of
distribution. All of these modem developments in-
crease the control over the lives of individuals
possessed by those who govern large organizations,
and at the same time make a few large organizations
much more productive than a number of smaller
ones. Short of the whole planet there is no visible
limit to the advantages of size, both in economic and
in political organizations.

I come now to another survey of roughly the same
governmental developments from a different point
of view. Governmental control over the lives of
members of the community has differed throughout
history, not only in the size of the governmental area,
but in the intensity of its interference with individual
life. What may be called civilization begins with
empires of a ^veil-defined type, of which Eg)'pt,
Babylon, and Nineveh ore the most notable; the
Aztec and Inca empires were essentially of the same
type. In such empires the upper caste had at first a
considerable measure of personal initiative, but the
large slave population acquired in foreign conquest
had none. The priesthood were able to interfere in
daily life to a very great degree. Hxcept where re-
ligion w’as involved, the King had absolute power,
and could compel his subjects to fight in his wars.
The dinnity of the King and the reverence for the
priesthood produced a stable society — in the case of
32

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT

Egypt, the most stable of T,vbich we have any know-
ledge. This stability was bought at the expense of
rigitoy. And these ancient empires became stereo-
typed to a point at which they could no longer resist
foreign a gg ression \ they were absorbed by Persia^
and Persia in the end was defeated by the Greeks.

The Greeks perfected a new type of civilization
that had been inaugurated by the Phoenicians: that
of the City State based on commerce and sea power.
Greek cities differed greatly as regards the degree
of individual liberty permitted to citizens; in most
of them there was a great deal, but in Sparta an
absolute minimum. Most of them tended, however,
to fall under the sway of tyrants, and throughout
considerable periods had a regime of despotisrn
tempered by revolution. In a City State revolution
was easy. Malcontents had only to traverse a few
miles to get beyond the territory of the government
a^lnst wVach they wished to rebel, and there vvere
always hostile City States ready to help them.
Throughout the great age of Greece there was a
degree of anarchy which to a modem mind would
seem intolerable. But the citizens of a Greek city,
even those who ivere in rebellion against the actual
|,o\ert\metit, had retained a psychology of primitive
’ loved their own city with a devotion
w ic vsas often, unwise but almost always passionate.

c greatness of the Greeks in individual aebieve-
ment was, 1 think, intimately bound up with their
political incompetence, for the strength of individual

AUTHORITY AND THt INDIVIDUAL

passion was the source both of indivitlua! achicic*
ment and of tlic faifure to secure Greek unity. And
so Greece fell under the domination, first of Mace-
donia, and then of Rome.

The Roman Empire, while it was expanding, left
a very considerable degree of individual and local
autonomy in the Provinces, but after Augustus
government gradually acquired a greater and greater
degree of control, and in the end, chiefly through
the severity of taxation, caused the whole system to
break doNSTi over the greater part of what had been
the Roman Empire. In what remained, iiowevcr,
there was no relaxation of control. It was objection
to this minute control, more than any other cause,
that made Justinian’s rc-conquest of Italy and Africa
so transitory. For those who had at first welcomed
his legions as deliverers from the Goths and Vandals
changed their minds ^vhen the legions were followed
by an army of tax gatherers.

Rome’s attempt to unify the civilized world came
to grief largely because, perhaps through being both
remote and alien, it failed to bring any measure of
instinctive happiness even to prosperous citizens, in
its last centuries there was universal pessimism and
lack of vigour. Men felt that life here on earth had
little to offer, and this feeling helped Christianity to
centre men’s thoughts on the world to come.

With the eclipse of Rome the West undenvent a
very complete transformation. Commerce almost
ceased, the great Roman roads fell into disrepair.

34

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT

petty kings constantly went to war each other,
and governed small territories as best they could,
while they had to meet the anarchy of a turbulent
Teutonic aristocracy and the sullen dislike of the old
Romanized population. Slavery on a large scale
almost disappeared throughout Western Christen-
dom, but was replaced by serfdom. In place of being
supported by the vast fleets that brought grain from
Africa to Rome, small communities with few and
rare external contacts lived as best they could on the
produce of their o^vn land. Life was hard and rough,
but it had no longer the quality of listlessness and
hopelessness that it had had in the last days of Rome.
Throughout the Dark Ages and Middle Ages lawless-
ness was rampant, with the result that all thoughtful
men worshipped law. Gradually the vigour which
lawlessness had permitted restored a measure of order
and enabled a series of great men to build up a new
civilization.

From the fifteenth century to the present time the
power of the State as against the individual has been
continually increasing, at first mainly as a result of
the invention of gunpo'vder. Just as, in the earlier
days of anarchy, the most thoughtful men worshipped
law, so during the period of increasing State power
there M-as a growing tendency to ^vo^ship liberty.
Tlie eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a re-
markable degree of success in increasing State power
to wliat >vas necessary' for the preservation of order,
and leaving in spite of it a great measure of freedom

3 ^

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

to those citizens who did not belong to the lowest
social grades. The impulse towards liberty, however,
seems nosv to have lost much of its force among
reformers; it has been replaced by the love of
equality, which has been largely stimulated by the rise
to affluence and power of new industrial magnates
without any traditional claim to superiority. And
the exigencies of total war have persuaded almost
everybody that a much tighter social system is
necessary than that which contented our grand-
fathers.

There is over a large part of the earth's surface
something not unlike a reversion to the ancient
Egyptian system of divine kingship, controlled by a
new priestly caste. Although this tendency has not
gone so far in the West as it has in the East, it has,
nevertheless, gone to lengths which would have
astonished the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
both in England and in America. Individual initiative
is hemmed in either by the State or by powerful
corporations, and there is a great danger lest this
should produce, as in ancient Rome, a kind of list-
lessness and fatalism that is disastrous to vigorous
life. I am constantly receiving letters saying: “I see
that the %vorld is in a bad state, but what can one
bumble person do ? Life and property are at the mercy
of a few individuals who have the decision as to
peace or war. Economic activities on any large scale
are determined by those who govern either the State
or the large corporations. Even where there is

36

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT

nominally democracy, the part whicli one citizen
can obtain in controlling policy is usually infinitesi-
mal, Is it not perhaps better in such circumstances
to forget public affairs and get as much enjoyment
by the way as the times permit?” I find such letters
very difficult to answer, and I am sure that the state
of mind which leads to their being written is very
inimical to a healthy social life. As a result of mere
size, government becomes increasingly remote from
the governed and tends, even in a democracy, to
have an independent life of its o^vn. 1 do not profess
to know how’ to cure this evil completely, but I think
it is important to recognize its existence and to
search for >vays of diminishing its magnitude.

The instinctive mechanism of social cohesion,
namely loyalty to a small tribe whose members are
all kno^vn to each other, is something very remote
indeed from the kind of loyalty to a large State
which has replaced it in the modem world, and even
what remains of the more primitive kind of loyalty
is likely to disappear in the new organization of the
world that present dangers call for. An Englishman
or a Scotsman can feel an instinctive loyalty to
Britain: he may know what Shakespeare has to say
about it ; he knows that it is an island >vith boundaries
that are wholly natural ; he is aware of English history,
in so far, at least, as it is glorious, and he knows that
people on the Continent speak foreign languages.
But if loyalty to Britain is to be replaced by loyalty
to Western Union, there will need to be a conscious-

37

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

ness of Western culture as something with a unity
transcending national boundaries ; for apart from this
there is only one psychological motive which is
adequate for the purpose, and that is the motive of
fear of external enemies. But fear is a negative motive,
and one which ceases to be operative in the moment
of victory. When it is compared with the love of a
Greek for his native city it is obvious how vejy much
smaller is the hold which loyalty based merely on
fear has on the instincts and passions of ordinary men.
and women in the absence of immediate and pressing
dangers.

Government, from the earliest times at which it
j existed, has had t>vo functions, one negative and one
I positive. Its negative function has been to prevent
private violence, to protect life and property, to
enact criminal law and secure its enforcement. But in
addition to this it has had a positive purpose, namely,
to facilitate the realization of desires deemed to be
I common to the great majority of citizens. The
positive functions of government at most times have
been mainly confined to war: if an enemy could be
conquered and his territory' acquired, everybody in
the victorious nation profited in a greater or less
degree. But now the positive functions of government
are enormously enlarged. There is first of all educa-
tion, consisting not only of the acquisition of scho-
lastic attainments, but also of the instilling of certain
loyalties and certain beliefs. Tliese are those which
the State considers desirable, and, in a lesser degree,

38

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT

in some cases, those demanded by some religious
body. Then there are vast industrial enterprises.
Even in the United States, which attempts to limit
the economic activities of the State to the utmost
possible degree, governmental control over such
enterprises is rapidly increasing. And as re^rds in-
dustrial enterprises there is little difference, from
the psychological point of view, bet^veen those con-
ducted by the State and those conducted by large
private corporations. In either case there is a govern-
ment which in fact, if not in intention, is remote
from those whom it controls. It is only the members
of the government, whether of a State or of a large
corporation, who can retain the sense of individual
initiative, and there is inevitably a tendency for
governments to regard those who work for them
more or less as they regard their machines, that is to
say, merely as necessary means. The desirability of
smooth co-operation constantly tends to increase the
size of units, and therefore to diminish the number
of those who still possess the power of initiative.
Worst of all, from our present point of view, is a
system which exists over wide fields in Britain, where
those who have nominal initiative are perpetually
controlled by a Civil Service which has only a veto
and no duty of inauguration, and thus acquires a
neg!.tive psychology perpetually prone to prohibitions.
Under such a system the energetic are reduced to
despair; those who might have become energetic in
a more hopeful environment tend to be listless and

AUTHORtTY AND TlfH INDIVIDUAL

frivolous; and it is not likely tliat the positive func*
tions of the State will be performed with vigour and
competence. It is probable that economic entomology
could bring in enormously greater profits tlian it does
at present, hut this would require the sanctioning of
the salaries of a considerable number of entomologists,
and at present the government is of the opinion that
a policy so enterprising as employing entomologists
should only be applied with timidity. This, needless
to say, is the opinion of men who have acquired the
habit that one sees in unwise parents of always saying
“don’t do that,” without stopping to consider
whether “that” does any harm. Sucli evils are very
hard to avoid where there is remote control, and
there is likely to be much remote control in any
organization which is very large.

I shall consider in a later lecture what can be done
to mitigate these evils wthout losing the indubitable
advantages of large-scale organization. It may be that
the present tendencies towards centralization are too
strong to be resisted until they have led to disaster,
and that, as happened in the fifth century, the whole
system must break do^vn, with all the inevitable
results of anarchy and poverty, before human beings
can again acquire that degree of personal freedom
without which life loses its savour. I hope that this
is not the case, but it certainly %vill be the case unless
the danger is realized and unless vigorous measures
are taken to combat it.

In this brief sketch of the changes in regard to

40

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT
social cohesion that have occurred in historical times,
we may observe a two-fold movement.

On tbe one hand, there is a periodic development,
from a loose and primitive type of organization to a
gradually more orderly government, embracing a
avider area, and regulating a greater part of the lives
of individuals. At a certain point in this development,
when there has recently been a great increase in
wealth and security, but the vigour and enterprise
of wilder ages has not yet decayed, there are apt to
be great achievements in the way of advancing civili-
zation. But when the new civilization becomes
stereotyped, when government has had time to
consolidate its power, when custom, tradition, and
law have established rules sufficiently minute to choke
enterprise, the society concerned enters upon a
stagnant phase. Men praise the exploits of theit
ancestors, but can no longer e<jual them; art becomes
conventional, and science is stifled by respect fot
authority.

This type of development followed by ossificatioa
is to be found in China and India, in Mesopotamia
and Bgypt, and in the Graeco-Roman world. The end
comes usually through foreign conquest: there are
did maxims for fitting old enemies, but when an
enemy of a nmv type arises the elderly community
has not the adaptability to adopt the new maxims
that can alone bring safety. If, as often happens, the
conquerors are less civilized tlun the conquered, they
have probably not the skill for the government of a

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
large empire, or for the presen’ation of commerce
over a wide area. Tlie result is a diminution of popu-
lation, of the size of governmental units, and of the
intensity of governmental control. Gradually, in the
new more or less anarchic conditions, vigour returns,
and a ne^v cycle begins.

But in addition to this periodic movement there is
another. At the apex of each cycle, the area governed
by one State is larger than at any former time, and
the degree of control exercised by authority over the
individual is more intense than in any previous
culmination. The Roman Empire was larger than the
Babylonian and Egyptian empires, and the empires of
the present day are larger than that of Rome. There
has never in past history been any large State that
controlled its citizens as completely as they are con-
trolled in the Soviet Republic, or even In the
countries of Western Europe.

Since the earth is of finite size, this tendency, if
unchecked, must end in the creation of a single
•world State. But as there will then be no external
enemy to promote cohesion through fear, the old
psychological mechanisms will no longer be adequate.
There will be no scope for patriotism in the affairs
of the world government; the driving force will have
to be found in self-interest and benevolence, ^vithout
the potent incentives of hate and fear. Can such a
society persist? And if it persists, can it be capable
of progress? These are difficult questions. Some
considerations that must be borne in mind if they
4 *

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT
arc to be answered will be brought forward in
subsequent lectures.

I have spoken of a wo-fold movement in past
history, but I do not consider that there is anything
either certain or ine\itable about such laws of
historical development as we can discover. New
knowledge may make the course of events completely
different from what it would other\vise have been;
this ^vas, for instance, a result of the discovery of
America. New institutions also may have effects
that could not have been foreseen: I do not see how
any Roman at the time of Julius Caesar could have
predicted anything at all like the Catholic Church.
And no one in the nineteenth century, not even
Marx, foresaw the Soviet Union. For such reasons,
all prophecies as to the future of mankind should be
treated only as hypotheses which may deserve con-
sideration.

1 think that, while all definite prophecy is rash,
there are certain undesirable possibilities which it
is wise to bear in mind. On the one hand, prolonged
and destructive %var may cause a breakdo^vn of
industry in all civilized States, leading to a condition
of small-scale anarchy such as pre\’ailed in Western
Europe after the fall of Rome. This would involve
an immense diminution of the population, and, for
a time at least, a cessation of many of the activities
• that we consider characteristic of a civilized way of
life. But it would seem reasonable to hope that, as
happened in the middle ages, a sufficient minimum

43

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

of social cohesion would in time be restored, and the
lost ground would gradually be recovered.

There is, however, another danger, perhaps more
likely to be realized. Modem techniques have made
possible a new intensity of governmental control,
and this possibility has been exploited very fully in
totalitarian States. It may be that under the stress of
war, or the fear of war, or as a result of totalitarian
conquest, the parts of the world where some degree
of individual liberty survives may grow fewer, and
even in them liberty may come to be more and more
restricted. There is not much reason to suppose that
the resulting system would be unstable, but it would
almost certainly be static and un-progressIve. And it
would bring with it a recrudescence of ancient evils;
slavery, bigotry, intolerance, and abject misery for
the majority of mankind. This is, to my mind, a
misfortune against which it is of the utmost impor-
tance to be on our guard. For this reason, emphasis
upon the value of the individual is even more
necessary now than at any former time.

There is anotlier fallacy which it is important to
avoid. I think it is true, as I have been arguing, that
what is congenital in human nature has probably
changed little during hundreds of thousands of years,
but what is congenital is only a small part of the
mental structure of a modem human being. From
wbat I have been saying 1 should not wish anyone to
draAV the inference that in a world witliout «-ar
there would necessarily be a sense of instinctive
44

SOCIAL COHESION AND GOVERNMENT

frustration. Sweden has never been at war since 1 814,
that is to say, for a period of four generations, but I
do not think anybody could maintain that the Swedes
have suffered in their instinctive life as a result of
this immimity. If mankind succeeds in abolishing war,
it should not be difficult to find other outlets for the
love of adventure and risk. The old outlets, which
at one time served a biological purpose, do so no
longer, and therefore new outlets are necessary. But
there is nothing in human nature that compels us to
acquiesce in continued savagery. Our less orderly
impulses are dangerous only when they are denied
or misunderstood. When this mistake is avoided, the
problem of fitting them into a good social system can
be solved by the help of intelligence and goodwill.

LECTURE THREE

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

In this lecture I propose to consider the importance,
both for good and evil, of impulses and desires that
belong to some members of a community but not to
all. In a very primitive community such impulses and
desires play very little part. Hunting and war are
activities in which one man may be more successful
than another, but in which all share a common pur-
pose. So long as a man’s spontaneous activities are
such as all the tribe approves of and shares in, his
initiative is very little curbed by others within the
tribe, and even his most spontaneous actions con-
form to the recognized pattern of behaviour. But as
men grow more civilized there comes to be an in-
creasing difference between one man’s acti\’ities and
another’s, and a community needs, if it is to prosper,
a certain number of individuals who do not wholly
conform to the general type. Practically all progress,
artistic, moral, and intellectual, has depended upon
such individuals, who have been a decisive factor in
the transition from barbarism to civilization. If a
community is to make progress, it needs exceptional
individuals whose activities, though useful, are not of
a sort that ought to be general. There is always a
tendency in highly organized society for the activities
4 «

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

of such indi\iduals to be unduly hampered, but on
tlie other hand, if the community exercises no con-
trol, the same kind of individual initiative avhich may
produce a valuable innovator may also produce a
criminal. The problem, like all those with which ave
are concerned, is one of balance; too little liberty
brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.

There are many avaj's in which an individual may
differ from most of the otlier members of his herd. He
may be exceptionally anarchic or criminal; he may
have rare artistic talent ; he may liave what comes in
time to be recognized as a new wisdom in matters of
religion and morals, and he may have exceptional
intellectual powers. It would seem that from a very
early period in human history tliere must have been
some differentiation of function. The pictures in the
caves in the Pyrenees which were made by Paleo-
litliic men have a very high degree of artistic merit,
and one can hardly suppose that all the men of that
time were capable of such admirable work. It seems
far more probable that those wlio were found to have
artistic talent were sometimes allowed to stay at
home making pictures while the rest of the tribe
hunted. The chief and tlie priest must have begun
from a very early time to be chosen for real or sup-
posed peculiar excellences: medicine men could
work magic, and the tribal spirit was in some sense
incarnate in the chief. But from the earliest time
there has been a tendency^ for every activity of this
kind to become institutionalized. The chieftain bc-

47

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

came hereditary, the medicine men became a sepa-
rate caste, and recognized bards became the proto-
types of our Poets Laureate. It has always been
difficult for communities to recognize what is
necessary for individuals who are going to make
the kind of exceptional contribution that I have in
mind, namely, elements of wildness, of separateness
from the herd, of domination by rare impulses of
which the utility was not always obvious to every-
body.

In this Lecture I wish to consider both in history
and in the present day the relation of the exceptional
man to the community, and the conditions that make
it easy for his unusual merits to be socially fruitful. I
shall consider this problem first in art, then in
religion and morals, and, finally, in science.

The artist in our day does not play nearly so vital
a part in public life as he has done in many former
ages. There is a tendency in our days to despise a
Court poet, and to think that a poet should be a
solitary being proclaiming something that Philistines
do not wish to hear. Historically the matter \ras far
othenvise; Homer, Vii^ll, and Shakespeare were
Court poets, they sang the glories of their tribe and
its noble traditions. (Of Shakespeare, I must confess,
tins is only partially true, but it certainly applies to
his historical plays.) Welsh bards kept alive the
glories of King Arthur, and these glories came to be
celebrated by English and French writers; King
Henrj’ 11 encouraged them for imperialistic reasons.

48

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

The glories of the Parthenon and of the medieval
cathedrals were intimately bound up with public
objects. Music, though it could play its part in court-
ship, existed primarily to promote courage in battle
— a purpose to which, according to Plato, it ought to
be confined by law. But of these ancient glories of
the artist little remains in the modem world except
the piper to a Highland regiment. We still honour
the artist, but we isolate him; we think of art as
something separate, not as an integral part of the life
of the community. The architect alone, because his
art serves a utilitarian purpose, retains something of
the ancient status of the artist.

The decay of art in our time is not only due to the
fact that the social function of the artist is not as
important as in former days; it is due also to the fact
that spontaneous delight is no longer felt as some-
thing which it is important to be able to enjoy.
Among comparatively unsophisticated populations
folk dances and popular music still flourish, and
something of tlie poet exists in very many men. But
as men grow more industrialized and regimented, the
kind of delight that is common in children becomes
impossible to adults, because they are always thinking
of the next thing, and cannot let themselves be
absorbed in the moment. This habit of thinking of the
“next tiling” is more fatal to any kind of aesthetic
excellence tlian any other habit of mind that can be
imagined, and if art, in any important sense, is to
sunivc, it will not be by tlic foundation of solemn

49

D

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL ’

academies, but by recapturing the capacity for whole-
hearted joys and soito^to which prudence and fore-
sight have all but destroyed.

The men conventionally recognized as the greatest
of mankind have been innovators in religion and
morals. In spite of the reverence given to them by
subsequent ages, most of them during their lifetime
were in a greater or less degree in conflict wth their
own communities. Moral progress has consisted, in
the main, of protest against cruel customs, and of
attempts to enlarge the bounds of human sympathy.
Human sacrifice among the Greeks died out at the
beginning of the fully historical epoch. The Stoics
taught that there should be sympathy not only for
free Greeks but for barbarians and slaves, and, in-
deed, for all mankind. Buddhism and Christianity
spread a similar doctrine far and wide. Religion,
which had originally been part of the apparatus of
tribal cohesion, promoting conflict without just as
much as co-operation within, took on a more uni-
versal character, and endeavoured to transcend the
narrow limits which primitive morality had set. It is
no w'onder if the religious innovators ^vere execrated
in their own day, for they sought to rob men of the
joy of battle and the fierce delights of revenge.
Primiti\e ferocity, which had seemed a virtue, was
now said to be a sin, and a deep duality was intro-
duced between morality and the life of impulse — or
rather beUveen the morality taught by those in whom
the impulse of humanity was strong, and the tradi-
SO

' THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

tional morality that was preferred by those who had
no sympathies outside their own herd.

Religious and moral innovators have had an im-
mense effect upon human life, not ahvays, it must be
confessed, the effect that they intended, but never-
theless on the whole profoundly beneficial. It is true
that in the present century we have seen in important
parts of the world a loss of moral values which we
had thought fairly secure, but we may hope that this
retrogression will not last. We o we it to the moral
innovators who first attempted to make morality a
OnlTersarVnd'^drmefelyiri^ matter, Aat there
IfiS^dm'e" toTje" a "d t sapproval of slavery, a feeling of
duty towards prisoners of war, a limitation of the
powers of husbands and fathers, and a recognition,
however imperfect, that subject races ought nojt^to
'e^joited for the benefit of their con-
querofsTAll these moral ^ins, it must be admitted,
Kavc~been jeopardized by a recrudescence of ancient
ferocity, but I do not think that in the end the moral
ad^'ance ^vhich they have represented will be lost to
mankind.

The prophets and sages who inaugurated this moral
advance, although for the most part they ^\'ere not
honoured in their owm day, were, nevertheless, not
prevented from doing tlieir work. In a modem
totalitarian State matters arc worse than they were
in tlic time of Socrates, or in the time of the Gospels.
In a totalitarian State an innovator whose ideas are
disliked by the government is not merely put

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

death, \vhich is a matter to which a brave man may
remain indifferent, but is totally prevented from
causing his doctrine to be knoivm. Innovations in
such a commimity can come only from the govern-
ment, and the government now, as in the past, is not
likely to approve of anything contrary to its own
immediate interests. In a totalitarian State such
events as the rise of Buddhism or Christianity are
scarcely possible, and not even by the greatest
heroism can a moral reformer acquire any influence
whatever. This is a new fact in human history,
brought about by the much increased control over
individuals which the modem technique of govem-
^ment has made possible. It is a very grave fact, and
f one which shows how fatal a totalitarian regime must
i be to every kind of moral progress.

? In our own day an individual of exceptional powers
can hardly hope to have so great a career or so great
a social influence as in former times, if he devotes
himself to art or to religious and moral reform.
There are, however, still four careers which are open
to him; he may become a great political leader, like
Lenin; he may acquire vast industrial power, like
Rockefeller; he may transform the world by scien-
tific discoveries, as is being done by the atomic
physicists; or, finally, if be has not the necessary
capacities for any of these careers, or if opportunity is
lacking, his energy in default of other outlet may
drive him into a life of crime. Criminals, in the legal
sense, seldom have much influence upon the course

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

of history, and therefore a man of over\veening
ambition will choose some other career if it is open
to him.

The rise of men of science to great eminence in
the State is a modem phenomenon. Scientists, like
other innovators, had to fight for recognition: some
were banished; some were burnt; some were kept in
dungeons ; others merely had their books burnt. But
gradually it came to be realized that they could put
power into the hands of the State. The French revo-
lutionaries, after mistakenly guillotining Lavoisier,
employed his surviving collea^es in the manufacture
of explosives. In modem Avar the scientists are recog-
nized by all civilized governments as the most useful
citizens, provided they can be tamed and induced to
place their services at the disposal of a single govern-
ment rather than of mankind.

Both for good and evil almost everjthing that
distinguishes our age from its predecessors is due to
science. In daily life we have electric light, and the
radio, and the cinema. In industry' Ave employ
machinery and power Avhich aa'c owe to science.
Because of the increased productirity of labour Ave
arc able to devote a far greater proportion of our
energies to Avars and preparations for Avars than Avas
formerly possible, and Ave arc able to keep the young
in school very' much longer than avc formerly could.
Owing to science avc are able to disseminate infor-
mation and misinformation through the Press and the
radio to practically cAcrybody. Owing to science we
S3

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
can make it enormously more difficult than it used
to be for people whom the government dislikes to
escape. The whole of our daily life and our social
organi2ation is what it is because of science. The
whole of this vast development is supported nowa-
days by the State, but it grew up originally in opposi-
tion to the State, and where, as in Russia, the State
has reverted to an earlier pattern, the old opposition
would again appear if the State were not omnipotent
to a degree undreamt of by the tyrants of former ages.

The opposition to science in the past was by no
means surprising. Men of science affirmed things that
were contrary to what everybody had believed ; they
upset preconceived ideas and were thought to be
destitute of reverence. Anaxagoras taught that the sun
was a red-hot stone and that the moon was made of
earth. For this impiety he was banished from Athens,
for %vas it not well known that the sun vras a god and
the moon a goddess? It was only the power over
natural forces conferred by science that led bit by
bit to a toleration of scientists, and even this was a
very slow process, because their powers were at
first attributed to ma^c.

It would not be surprising if, in the present day, a
powerful anti-scientific movement were to arise as a
result of the dangers to human life that are resulting
from atom bombs and may result from bacteriological
warfare. But whatever people may feel about these
horrors, they dare not turn against the men of
science so long as war is at all probable, because if

THF ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

one side were equipped with scientists and the other
not, the scientific side would almost certainly win.

Science, in so far as it consists of knowledge, must
be regarded as ha\ing value, but in so far as it con-
sists of technique the question >vhether it is to be
praised or blamed depends upon the use that is made
of the technique. In itself it is neutral, neither good
nor bad, and any ultimate views that we may have
about ^vhat gives value to this or that must come
from some other source than science.

The men of science, in spite of their profound
influence upon modem life, are in some ways less
powerful than the politicians. Politicians in our day
are far more influential than they were at any former
period in human history'. Tlieir relation to the men
of science is like that of a magician in the Arabian
Nights to a djtnn who obeys his orders. The djinn does
astounding things which the magician, without his
help, could not do, but he does them only because
he is told to do them, not because of any impulse in
himself. So it is with the atomic scientists in our
day; some government captures them in their homes
or on the high seas, and they are set to work, accord-
ing to the luck of their capture, to slave for the one
side or for the other. TTie politician, when he is
successful, is subject to no such coercion. The most
astounding career of our times was that of Lenin.
After his brother had been put to death by the
Czarist Government, he spent years in poverty and
exile, and theh rose within a few months to com-

5S

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

mand of one of the greatest of States. And this
command was not like that of Xerxes or Caesar,
merely the power to enjoy luxury and adulation,
which but for him some other man would have been
enjoying. It was the power to mould a vast country
according to a pattern conceived in his o^vn mind, to
alter the life of every worker, every peasant, and
every middle-class person ; to introduce a totally new
kind of organization, and to become throughout the
world the sjTnboI of a new order, admired by some,
execrated by many, but Ignored by none. No megalo-
maniac’s dream could have been more terrific.
Napoleon had asserted that you can do everything
with bayonets except sit upon them; Lenin disproved
the exception.

The great men who stand out in history have been
partly benefactors of mankind and partly quite the
reverse. Some, like the great religious and moral
innovators, have done what lay in their power to
make men less cruel towards each other, and less
limited in their sjTnpathies; some, like the men of
science, have given us a knowledge and understand-
ing of natural processes which, however it may be
misused, must be regarded as in itself a splendid
thing. Some, like the great poets and composers
and painters, have put into the world beauties and
splendours which, in moments of discouragement, do
much to make the spectacle of human destiny en-
durable. But others, equally able, equally effective in
their way, have done quite the opposite. I cannot

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

think of anything that mankind has gained by the
existence of Jenghis Khan. 1 do not know what good
came of Robespierre^ and, for my part, I see no
reason to be gratefid to Lenin. But all these men,
good and bad alike, had a equality which I should not
wish to see disappear from the world — a quality of
energy and personal initiative, of independence of
mind, and of imaginative vision. A man who pos-
sesses these qualities is capable of doing much good,
or of doing great harm, and if mankind is not to sink
into dullness such exceptional men must find scope,
though one could wish that the scope they find
should be for tbe benefit of mankind. There may be
less difference than is sometimes thought between
the temperament of a great criminal and a great
statesman. It may be that Captain Kidd and Alexander
the Great, if a magician had interchanged them at
birth, would have each fulfilled the career which, in
fact, \\'as fulfilled by the odier. The same thing may
be said of some artists; the memoirs of Benvenuto
Cellini do not give a picture of a man with that
respect for law which every right-minded citizen
ought to have. In the modem world, and still more,
so far as can be guessed, in the world of the near
future, important achievement is and will !>c alniont
impossible to an individual if he cannot dnmiuale
some ^•ast organization. If he can make hiinsolf lir.ul
of a State like Lenin, or monopolist of a grriit In-
dustry like Rockefeller, or a controller of cu’dll Ilf''
the elder Pierpont Morgan, he can produce ciioHiu

S7

THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALITY

of little painters. The great German composers arose
in a milieu where music ■was \-alued, and where
numbers of lesser men found opportunities. In those
dap poetry, painting, and music were a vital part of
the daily life of ordinary men, as only sport is now.
The great prophets were men who stood out from a
host of minor prophets. The inferiority of our age in
such respects is an inevitable result of the fact that
society is centralized and oiganized to such a degree
that individual initiative is reduced to a minimum.
Where art has flourished in the past it has flourished
as a rule amongst small communities which had rivals
among their neighbours, such as the Greek City
States, the little Principalities of the Italian Renais-
sance, and the petty Courts of German eighteenth-
century rulers. Each of these rulers had to have his
musician, and once in a way he was Johann Sebastian
Bach, but even if he was not he svas still free to do
his best. There is something about local riNulry that
is essential in such matters. It played its part even in
the building of the cathedrals, because each bishop
wished to have a finer cathedral than the neighbour-
ing bishop. It would be a good diing if cities could
develop an artistic pride leading them to mutual
rivalry, and if each had its o%vn school of music and
painting, not without a vigorous contempt for the
school of the next city. But such local patriotisms do
not readily flourish in a world of empires and free
mobility. A Manchester man does not readily feel
tO>vards a man from Sheffield as an Athenian felt

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

effects in the world. And so he can if, being a man of
science, he persuades some government that his work
may be useful in war. But the man who works with-
out the help of an organization, like a Hebrew
prophet, a poet, or a solitary philosopher such as
Spinoza, can no longer hope for the kind of impor-
tance which such men had in former days. The
change applies to the scientist as well as to other
men. The scientists of the past did their work veiy
largely as individuals, but the scientist of our day
needs enormously expensive equipment and a labora-
tory >vith many assistants. All this he can obtain
through the favour of the government, or, in America,
of very rich men. He is thus no longer an independent
worker, but essentially part and parcel of some Jaige
organization. This change is very unfortunate, for the
things which a great man could do in solitude were
apt to be more beneficial than those which he can
only do >vith the help of the powers that be. A man
who wishes to influence human affairs finds it difficult
to be successful, except as a slave or a tyrant: as a
politician he may make himself the head of a State,
or as a scientist he may sell his labour to the govern-
ment, but in that case he must sene its purposes and
not his own.

And this applies not only to men of rare and
exceptional greatness, but to a wide range of talent.

In the ages in ^vhich there were great poets, there
were also large numbers of little poets, and when
there s>-cre great painters there were large numbers

the role of individuality
of little painters. The great German composers arose
in a milieu where music >vas valued, and where
numbers of lesser men found opportunities. In those
days poetry, painting, and music >vere a vital part of
the daily life of ordinary men, as only sport is now.
The great prophets were men who stood out from a
host of minor prophets. The inferiority of our age in
such respects is an inevitable result of the fact that
society is centralized and organized to such a degree
that individual initiative is reduced to a minimum.
Where art has flourished in the past it has flourished
as a rule amongst small communities which had rivals
among their neighboun, such as the Greek City
States, the little Principalities of the Italian Renais-
sance, and the petty Courts of German eighteenth-
century rulers. Each of these nders had to have his
musician, and once in a way he was Johann Sebastian
Bach, but even if he was not he ^vas still free to do
his best. There is somediing about local rivalry diat
is essential in such matters. It played its part even in
the building of the cathedrals, because each bishop
wished to have a finer cathedral than the neighbour-
ing bishop. It would be a good thing if cities could
develop an artistic pride leading them to mutual
rivalrj', and if each had its own school of music and
painting, not without a vigorous contempt for the
school of the next city. But such local patriotisms do
not readily flourish in a world of empires and free
mobility. A Manchester man does not readily feel
towards a man from Sheffield as an Athenian felt

59

AUTHORITY AND TUT INDIVIDUAL

towards a Corinthian, or a Florentine towards a
Venetian. But in spite of the difficulties, I think that
this problem of giving importance to localities wll
have to be tackled if human life is not to become
increasingly drab and monotonous.

The savage, in spite of his membership of a small
community, lived a life in which his initiative was
not too much hampered by the community. The
things that he wanted to do, usually hunting and war,
were also the things that his neighbours ^vanted to do,
and if he felt an inclination to become a medicine
man he only had to ingratiate himself with some
individual already eminent in that profession, and so,
in due course, to succeed to his powers of magic. If
he was a man of exceptional talent, he might invent
some improvement in weapons, or a new skill in
hunting. These would not put him into any opposi-
tion to the community, but, on the contrary, would
be welcomed. The modem man lives a very different
life. If he sings in the street he will be thought to be
drunk, and if he dances a policeman will reprove
him for impeding the traffic. His working day, unless
he is exceptionally fortunate, is occupied in a com-
pletely monotonous manner in producing something
which is valued, not, like the shield of Achilles, as a
beautiful piece of work, but mainly for its utility.
When his work is over, he cannot, like Milton’s
Shepherd, “tell his tale under the hawthorn in the
dale,” because there is often no dale anywhere near
where he lives, or, if there is, it is full of tins. And
6o

AUTHOniTV AND TUT INDIVIDUAL

too little. At least we feel too little of those creative
emotions from which a good life springs. In regard to
what is important we are passive ; where we are active
it is over trivialities. If life is to be saved from bore-
dom relieved only by disaster, means must be found
of restoring individual initiative, not only in things
that are trivial, but in the things that really matter.
I do not mean that we should destroy those parts of
modem organization upon which the very existence
of large populations depends, but I do mean that
organization should be much more flexible, more
relieved by local autonomy, and less oppressive to
the human spirit through its impersonal vastness,
than it has become through its unbearably rapid
growth and centralization, with •which our ways of
thought and feeling have been unable to keep pace.

62

LECTURE FOUR

THE CONFLICT OF TECHNIQUE
AND HUMAN NATURE

Man differs from other animals in many One
of these is, that he is willing to engage in activities
tliat are unpleasant in themselves, because they are
means to ends that he desires. do things

that, from the point of \iev.- of :h.e s^m

to be labour for a purpose: biids buHd rasts and
beavers build .dams. But they -do these from

instinct, because they have an to d/y them

and not because they perceive thet t^-r zrt aiefui
They do not practise selT-cor^ cr or

foresight or restraint of imjdsa i-r djt sn,U Human
beings do all these things. V,Wc«- Ay more of
them than human nature cm eratVe/trer -offer a
psychological penalts-. Prr: «' mSi i, „„
avoidable in a ciriliaed ssar ct Ee, rr-i cf it ‘is

^ecessaT^ and codd E.e r-«ed ho- a' different
type oi social orgaruzciS^,

Early man had ^

and impulses.
necessary for erryirdier
hot that ,v« nc-* fr.:l::

activities: he eor.4~-’'r •=’

pleasure. HuatiV

AUTHORITY AND TliE INDIVIDUAL

the idle rich; it liad lost its biological usefulness, but
remained enjoyable. Combat, of the simple sort
directly inspired by impulse, is now only permitted
to schoolboys, but combativeness remains, and, if
denied a better outlet, finds its most important ex-
pression in war.

Early man, however, svas not wholly svithout
activities that he felt to be useful rather than in-
trinsically attractive. At a very early stage in human
evolution the making of stone implements began, and
so inaugurated the long development that led up to
our present elaborate economic system. But in the
early Stone Age it is possible that the pleasure of
artistic creation and of prospective increase of power
diffused itself over the laborious stages of the work.
When the journey from means to end is not too long,
the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is
ardently desired. A boy will toil up hill wth a
toboggan for the sake of the few brief moments of
bliss during the descent; no one has to urge him to
be industrious, and however he may puff and pant
he is still happy. But if instead of the immediate
reward you promised him an old-age pension at
seventy, his energy would very quickly flag.

Much longer efforts than those of the boy with the
toboggan can be inspired by a creative impulse, and
still remain spontaneous. A man may spend years of
hardship, danger, and poverty in attempts to climb
Everest or reach the Soutli Pole or make a scientific
discovery', and live all the while as much in harmony
64

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

witli his own impulses as the boy ^vith the toboggan,
provided he ardently desires the end and puts his
pride into overcoming obstacles. As the Red Indian
said, “there’s glory in it.”

The introduction of slavery began the divorce
between the purpose of the work and the purposes
of the worker. The Pyramids were built for the
glory of the Pharaohs; the slaves who did the work
had no share in the glory, and worked only from fear
of the overseer’s lash. Agriculture, when carried on
by slaves or serfs, equally brought no direct satis-
faction to those who did the work; their satisfaction
was only that of being alive and (with luck) free
from physical pain.

In modem times before the Industrial Revolution,
the diminution of serfdom and the growth of handi-
crafts increased the number of workers tvho were
their o>vn masters, and who could therefore enjoy
some pride in W’hat they produced. It was this state
of affairs that gave rise to the tj-pe of democracy
advocated by Jefferson and the French Revolution,
which assumed a vast number of more or less
independent producers, as opposed to the huge
economic organizations that modem technique has
created.

Consider a large factor)', say one that makes motor
cars. The purpose of the organization is to make cars,
but the purpose of the workers is to cam wages.
Subjectively, there is no common purpose. The uniting
purpose exists only in owners and managers, and may
6s E

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

be completely absent in most of those who do the
worh. Some may be proud of the excellence of the
cars produced, but most, through their unions, are
mainly concerned with wages and hours of work.

To a considerable extent, this evil is inseparable
from mechanization combined with large size. Owing
to the former, no man makes a l^rge part of a car,
but only one small share of some one part; a great
deal of Work requires little skill, and is completely
monotonous. Owing to the latter (the large size of
the organization) the group who collectively make
a car have no unity and no sense of solidarity as
benveen management and employees. There is
solidarity among the wage-earners, and there may be
solidarity in the management. But the solidarity of
the wage-earners lias no relation to the product; it
is concerned to increase wages and diminish hours
of work. The management majr have a pride in the
product, but when an industry is thoroughly com-
mercialized there is a tendency to think only of
profit, w’hich may often be secured more easily by
advertisement than by improved workmanship.

Tw'o things have led to a diminished pride in
workmanship. The earlier was the invention of
currency; the later was mass production. Currency
led to the valuation of an article by its price, which
is something not intrinsic, but an abstraction shared
w’ith other commodities. Things not made to be
exchanged may be valued for what they are, not for
what they will buy. Cottage gardens in country
66

TECHNIQUE AND IlUAIAN NATUKF

villages arc often lovely, and may have cost much
labour, but are not intended to bring any monetary
^e^vard. Peasant costumes, ^^hich now hardly exist
except for the delectation of tourists, were made by
their wearers’ families, and had no price. The
temples of the Acropolis and the medieval cathedrals
were not built with any pecuniary' motive, and were
not capable of being exchanged. Very gradually, a
money economy has replaced an economy in which
things were produced for the use of the producer,
and this change has caused commodities to be viewed
as useful rather than delightful.

Mass production has carried this process to new
lengths. Suppose you are a manufacturer of buttons:
however excellent your buttons may be, you do not
>vant more than a few for your own use. All the rest
you wish to exchange for food and shelter, a motor
car and your children’s education, and so on. These
various things share nothing with the buttons except
money value. And it is not even the money value of
the buttons that is important to you; what is im-
portant is pro/jt, i.e. the excess of their selling value
above the cost of production, which may be increased
by diminishing their intrinsic excellence. Indeed a
loss of intrinsic excellence usually results when mass
production is substituted for more primitive methods.

There are two consequences of modem organiza-
tion, in addition to those already mentioned, that
tend to diminish the producer’s interest in the
product. One is the remoteness of the gain to be

67

AllTHOItITY AM» TItf t S* P I V 1 1) (I A I-

c.xpctlcil fioin the work; the olIuT is llic disorcc
between ilic nuTw^i'ntcnt anti the norkcr.

As for the remoteness of the gain: suppose )ou
arc engaged at the pri*scnt time in some sul)ordinatc
part of the nunufaciurc of some commodity for
export — let us m) again a motor car. You arc told,
will: mud: empliasis, tliat the export tirisc is neces-
sary in onlor tliai we may be al)Ie to buy food. Tlic
extra food that is bought as a result of your labour
tlocs not conic to )ou personally, but is divided
among tbc fort) million or so who inliabit Britain.
If you arc absent from work one day, there is no
visible harm to the national economy. It is only by
an intellectual effort that you can make yourself
aw’arc of the Iiarm lliat jou do by not working, and
only by a moral effort that )ou can make yourself do
more work than Is necessary in order to keep your
job. The whole tiling Is completely dilTercnt when
the need is obvious ami pressing, for instance, in a
slu'pwreck. In a shipwreck the crew obey orders
without the need of reasoning w’itli themselves, be-
cause they have a common purpose which is not
remote, and tlic means to its realization are not
difficult to understand. But if the captain were
obliged, like the government, to explain the prin-
ciples of currency in order to prove his commands
wise, the ship would sink before his lecture was
finished.

Divorce between the management and the worker
has two aspects, one of which is the familiar conflict
68

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

of capital and labour, while the other is a more
general trouble afflicting all large organizations. I
do not propose to say anything about the conflict
of labour and capital, but the remoteness of govern-
ment, whether in a political or an economic organiza-
tion, whether under capitalism or under socialism,
is a somewhat less trite theme, and deser\’es to be
considered.

However society may be organized, there is in-
evitably a large area of conflict between the general
interest and the interest of this or that section. A
rise in the price of coal may be adv'antageous to the
coal industry and facilitate an increase in miners’
>vages, but is disadvantageous to everybody else.
When prices and Nvages are fixed by the government,
every decision must disappoint somebody. The con-
siderations which should weigh wth the government
are so general, and so apparently removed from the
eveiyday life of the workers, that it is very difficult
to make them appear cogent. A concentrated advan-
tage is always more readily appreciated than a
diffused disadvantage. It is for this sort of reason that
governments find it difficult to resist inflation, and
that, when they do, they are apt to become unpopular.
A government which acts genuinely in the interests
of the general public runs a risk of being thought by
each section to be perversely ignoring the interests
of that section. This is a difficulty which, in a
democracy, tends to be increased by every increase
in the degree of governmental control.

69

AUTHORITY AND THF INDIVIDUAL

j MoreoNcr, it would be unduly optimistic to expect
/that governments, even if democratic, will al\^•ays do
I what is best in the public interest. I have spoken
j before of some evils connected with bureaucracy; I
wish now to consider those imolved in the relation
of the official to the public. In a highly organized
community’ tliose who exercise governmental func-
tions, from Ministers down to the most junior
employees in local offices, ha\e their owm private
interests, which by no means coincide with those
of the community. Of these, love of p ower an d
dislike of work are the chief. A civil serstint who says
”Ho” to a project satisfies at once his pleasure in
exercising authority and his disinclination for effort.
And so he comes to seem, and to a certain extent to
be, the enemy of those whom he is supposed to serve.

Take, as an illustration, the measures necessary for
dealing with a shortage of food. If you possess an
allotment, the difficulty of obtaining food may lead
you to work hard if you are allowed to use your
produce to supplement your rations. But most
people must buy all their food unless they are engaged
in agriculture. Under laissez^aire, prices would soar,
and all except the rich would be seriously under-
nourished. But although this is true, few of us are
adequately grateful for the services of the ladies in
food offices, and still fewer of them can preserve
through fatigue and worry a ivhoUy benevolent atti-
tude to the public. To the public, the ladies appear,
however unjustly, as ignorant despots; to the ladies,

70

TECHNIQlir AND HUMAN NATURE

the public appear as tiresome, fussy, and stupid,
perpetually losing things or changing their addresses.

It is not easy to see how, out of such a situation, a
genuine harmony betavcen government and the
governed can be produced.

The ^vays which have hitherto been discovered of
producing a partial harmony between private feelings
and public interest have been open to objections of
various kinds.

The easiest and most obvious barmonizer is war.
In a difficult war, when national self-presentation is
in. jeopardy, it is easy to induce everybody to work
with 3 will, and if the government is thought compe-
tent its orders are readily obeyed. The situation is
like that in a shipwreck. But no one would advocate
ship>vrecks as means of promoting naval discipline,
and we cannot advocate wars on the ground that they
cause national unity. No doubt something of the
same effect can be produced by the Jear of war, but
if fear of war is acute for a long enough time it is
pretty sure to result m actual war, and while it
promotes national unity it also causes both lassvtude.
and hysteria.

Competition, where it exists, is an immensely
powerful incentive. It has been generally decried by
socialists as one of the evil things in a capitalist
society, but the Soviet Government has restored it
to a very important place in the organization of
industry. Stakhanovitc methods, in which curtain
workers are rewarded for exceptional proficloncy,

7 *

nCKSlQUE AND

Kfor.tepr«cnt,«mvoime.»vd«>CTe»eof

pkcto U fc onl5 «y o»t. m •« >»“>

« \i may sometimes be, U not a perma-
w^uikn, anti is not Viktiy to be successful over
> i'fft: fcricxi. U Involves a sense of strain, and a
rtsUuncc to natural impulses, which, if
rw.sr.'acd, must be cxivansting and productive of a
of namrai energy. If it is urged, not on
Irinv of some simple traditional ethic such, as the
'irfi'Ccmma^ments, but on complicated economic
xA p'Jinieal grounds, weariness will lead to scepti- '
litra av \tj die ir^ments involved, and many people
'-’A thbcT Vttomc simply indifferent or adopt some
yttbiMy entnie tbeoT)' suggesting that there is a
?b'-n «t to prosperity. Men can be stimulated by
or driven bx frat, but the hope and the fear
r .'•v \k vivid ind immedUte if they are to be
*• '^‘.nr svlthfu*. ptoduerngweariness.

11 viiO.s t-it H-.vm Viplcncal ^rofa-

r-.u, « V.w.

T .la. Vji Vitli «-,!npol inilMnce m 1.W
i-''. ,ti 3K aa-itc, in j 5

’ -z d» n lives t

gwvtml Way,

11 ( !'.• 1-, -v", 1 *'5

-.1 V.Qw tUU

<1 la KivtuiUnEvaiiul

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

while Others are punished for shortcomings, are a
revival of piece-^vork systems against which trade
unions have vigorously and successfully campaigned.
I have no doubt that these systems have in Russia
the merits formerly claimed by capitalists, and the
demerits emphasized by trade unions. As a solution
of the psychological problem they are certainly in-
adequate.

But although competition, in many forms, is
gravely objectionable, it has, I think, an essential
part to play in the promotion of necessary effort, and
in some spheres affords a comparatively harmless
outlet for the kind of impulses that might otherwise
lead to war. No one would advocate the abolition of
competition in games. If two hitherto rival football
teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decided
to co-operate in placing the football first beyond one
goal and then beyond the other, no one’s happiness
would be increased. There is no reason why the zest
derived from competition should be confined to
athletics. Emulation bet%veen teams or localities or
organizations can be a useful incentive. But if
competition is not to become ruthless and harmful,
the penalty for failure must not be disaster, as in war,
or stan’ation, as in unregulated economic competi-
tion, but only loss of glory. Football would not be a
desirable sport if defeated teams were put to death
or left to starve.

In Britain, in recent years, a gallant attempt has
been made to appeal to the sense of duty. Austerity

72

TECHNIQUE AND IIUAIAN NATURE

is, for the present, unavoidable, and increase of
production is the only way out. This is undeniable,
and an appeal of this sort is no doubt necessary during
a time of crisis. But sense of duty, valuable and in-
dispensable as it may sometimes be, is not a perma-
nent solution, and is not likely to be successful over
a long period. It involves a sense of strain, and a
constant resistance to natural imjmlses, which, if
continued, must be exhausting and productive of a
diminution of natural enei^. If it is urged, not on
the basis of some simple traditional ethic such as the
Ten Commandments, but on complicated economic
and political grounds, weariness will lead to scepti-
cism as to the arguments involved, and many people
will either become simply indifferent or adopt some
probably untrue theory suggesting that tliere is a
short cut to prosperity. Men can be stimulated by
hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear
must be vivid and Immediate if they are to be
effective without producing weariness.

It is partly for this reason that hysterical propa-
ganda, or at least propaganda intended to cause
hysteria, has such widespread influence m the
modem world. People are aware, in a general way,
that their daily lives are afiected by things that
happen in distant parts of the world, but they have
not the knowledge to understand how this happens,
except in the case of a smalt number of experts. Why
is there no rice? Why are bananas so rare? Why
have oxen apparently ceased to have tails? If you lay
7J

AUTHORITY AND THF INDIVIDUAL

the blame on India, or red tape, or the capitalist
system, or the socialist State, you conjure up in
people’s minds a mythical personified devil whom
it is easy to hate. In every misfortune it is a natural
impulse to look for an enemy upon whom to lay
the blame; savages attribute all illness to hostile
magic. Whenever the causes of our troubles are too
difficult to be understood, w'e tend to fall back upon
this primitive kind of explanation. A newspaper
which offers us a villain to hate is much more ap-
pealing than one ^vhich goes into all the intricacies
of dollar shortages. When the Germans suffered after
the first world war, many of them were easily
persuaded that the Jews were to blame.

The appeal to hatred of a supposed enemy as the
explanation of whatever is painful in our lives is
usually destructive and disastrous; it stimulates
primitive instinctive eneigy, but in ways the effects
of which are catastrophic. There are various ^\'ays
of diminishing the potency of appeals to hatred.
The best way, obviously, where it is possible, is to
cure the evils which cause us to look out for an
enemy. Where this cannot be achieved, it may
sometimes be possible to disseminate widely a true
understanding of the causes that are producing our
misfortunes. But this is difficult so long as there are
powerful forces in politics and in the Press which
flourish by the encouragement of hysteria.

1 do not think that misfortune, by itself, produces
the kind of hysterical hatred that led, for example,

74

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

to the rise of the Nazis. There has to be a sense of
frustration as well as misfortune. A Swiss family V
Robinson, finding plenty to do on their island, will |
not AN'aste time on hatred. But in a more complex !
situation the activities that arc in fact necessary may
be far less capable of making an immediate appeal
to individuals. In the present difficult state of British
national economy, we know collectively what is
needed: increased production, diminished consump-
tion, and stimulation of exports. But these are large
general matters, not very visibly related to the
welfare of particular men and women. If the activities
that are needed on such apparently remote grounds
are to be carried out vigorously and cheerfully, ways
must be devised of creating some more immediate
reason for doing what the national economy requires.
This, I chink, demands controlled devolution, and
opportunities for desirable more or less independent
action by individuals or by groups that are not very
large.

I Democracy, as it exists in large modem States,
does not give adequate scope for political initiative
except to a tiny minority. We are accustomed to
/ pointing out that what the Greeks called “demo-
cracy” fell short through the exclusion of \vomen
and slaves, but we do not alwap realize that in some
important respects it Avas more democratic than
anything that is possible when the governmental area
is extensive. Every citizen could vote on every issue;
he did not have to delegate his power to a representa-

7r

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
tive. He could elect executive officers, including
generals, and could get them condemned if they
displeased a majority. The number of citizens was
small enough for each man to feel that he counted,
and that he could have a significant influence by
discussion with his acquaintance. I am not suggesting
that this system was good on the whole; it had, in
fact, very grave disadvantages. But in the one respect
of allowing for individual initiative it was very
greatly superior to anything that exists in the modern
world.

Consider, for purposes of illustration, the relation
of an ordinary taxpayer to an admiral. The tajqiayers,
collectively, are the admiral’s employers. Their
agents in Parliament vote his pay, and choose the
government which sanctions the authority which
appoints the admiral. But if the indMdual taxpayer
were to attempt to assume towards the admiral the
attitude of authority which is customary from em-
plo}'er to employee, he would soon be put in his
place. The admiral is a great man, accustomed to
exercising authority; the ordinary taxpayer is not.

In a lesser degree the same sort of thing is true
throughout the public services. Even if you only wish
to register a letter at a Post Office, the official is in
a position of momentary power; he can at least decide
when to notice that you desire attention. If you want
anything more complicated, he can, if he happens
to be in a bad humour, cause you considerable
annoyance; he can send you to another man, who
76

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

may send you back to the first man; and yet both
are reckoned “servants” of the public. The ordinary
voter, so far from finding himself the source of all
the power of army, navy, police, and civil service,
feels himself their humble subject, whose duty is, as
the Chinese used to say, to “tremble and obey.” Sc
long as democratic control is remote and rare, while
public administration is centralized and authority is
delegated from the centre to the circumference, this
sense of individual impotence before the powers that
be is difficult to avoid. And yet it must be avoided
if democracy is to be a reality in feeling and not
merely in governmental machinery.

Most of the evils that we have been concerned with
in this lecture are no new thing. Ever since the dawn
of civilization most people m civilized communities
have led lives full of misery; glory, adventure, initia-
tive were for the privileged few, while for the multi-
tude there vvas a life of severe toil with occasional
harsh cruelty. But the Western nations first, and
gradually the whole world, have awakened to a new
ideal. We are no longer content that the few should
enjoy all the good things while the many are wretched.
Tlie evils of early industrialism caused a thrill ol
horror which they would not have caused in Roman
times. Slavery was abolished because it was felt that
no imman being should be regarded merely as an
instTUTfient to the prosperity of another. We no
longer attempt, at least in theory, to defend the
exploitation of coloured races by white conquerors.
77

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

Sociailism \vas inspired by the wish to diminish the
gap between rich and poor. In all directions, there
has been a revolt against injustice and inequality, and
I an unwillingness to build a brilliant superstructure
: on a foundation of suffering and degradation.

This new belief is now so generally taken for
granted that it is not sufficiently realized how revolu-
tionary it is in the long history of mankind. In this
perspective the last hundred and sixty years appear
as a continuous revolution inspired by this idea. Like
all new beliefs that are influential, it is uncomfortable,

and demands difficult adjustments. There is a danger —
as there has been with other gospels — lest means
should be mistaken for ends, with the result that ends
are forgotten. There is a risk that, in the pursuit of
equality, good things which there is difficulty in
distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good.
Some of the unjust societies of the past gave to a
minority opportunities which, if we are not carefu?,
the new society that we seek to build may give to no
one. When I speak of the evils of the present day,

1 do so, not to suggest that they are greater than
those of the past, but only to make sure that what
was good in the past should be carried over into the
future, as far as possible unharmed by the transition.
But if this is to be achieved, some things must be
remembered which are apt to be forgotten in blue-
prints of Utopia.

Among the things which are in dmgei^of J}_e_ing
unnecessarily sacrificed to democratic equality^per-

78

TECHNIQUE AND HUAIAN NATURE

haps the most important is self-respect. By self-
fespeccT mean tlie good half of pride — ^\vhat is called
* ‘proper pride.’’ The had half is a sense of superiority .
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when
he is in the power of enemies, and w’ill enable him
to feel that he may be in the right when the world
is against him. If a man has not this quality, he will
feel that majority opinion, or governmental opinion,
is to be treated as infallible, and such a way of feeling,
if it is genera], makes both moral and intellectual
progress impossible.

Self-respect has been hitherto, of necessity, a virtue
of the minority. Wherever there is inequality of
power, it is not likely to be found among those who
are subject to the rule of others. One of the most
revolting features of tyrannies is the way in which
they lead the victims of injustice to oifer adulation
to those who ill-treat them. Roman gladiators saluted
the emperors W’Ko were about to cause half of them
to be slaughtered for amusement. Dostoevski and
Bakunin, when in prison, pretended to think well
of the Czar Nicholas. Those who are liquidated by
the Soviet Government very frequently make an
abject confession of sinfulness, while those who
escape the purges indulge in nauseous flatteries and
not infrequently try to incriminate colleagues. A
democratic regime is likely to avoid these grosser
forms of self-abasement, and can give complete
opportunity for the preservation of self-respect. But
it wc^ do quite the opposite.

79

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

Since self-respect has, in the past, been, in the
/ main, confined to the privileged minority, it may
I easily be undervalued by those who are in opposition
I to an established oligarchy. And those who believe
j that the voice of the people is the voice of God may
; infer that any unusual opinion or peculiar taste is
almost a form of impiety, and is to be viewed as a
culpable rebellion a^inst the legitimate authority of
the herd. This will only be avoided if liberty is as
much valued as democracy, and it is realized that a
society in which each is the slave of all js only a little
1 better than one in which each is the slave of a despot.
There is equality where all are slaves, ^s^well -as
wltere'-all are' free. This shows that equality, by
itself, is not enough to make a good society.

Perh'aps“tKe* most important problem in an in-
dustrial society, and certainly one of the most
difficult, is that of making work interesting, in the
sense of being no longer merely a means to ^^■ages.
This is a problem which arises especially in relation
to unskilled work. Work that is difficult is likely to
be attractive to those who are able to do it. Crossword
puzzles and chess are closely analogous to some kinds
of skilled work, and yet many people spend much
effort on them, merely for pleasure, But with the
increase of machinery there is a continual increase m
the proportion of v>agc-camers whose work is com-
pletely monotonous and completely easy. Professor
Abercrombie, in Jiis Greater London TJan, 1944*
points out, incidentally and without emphasis, that
So

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

most modem industries require no specialized apti-
tudes and therefore need not be sited in districts
where traditional skills exist. He says: “Non-
dependence on any one labour pool is further
emphasized by the nature of modern work, which
demands relatively little skill, but a high degree of
steadiness and reliability; these are qualities which
can be found almost anywhere among the working
class population today.’*

“Steadiness and reliability” are certainly very
useful qualities, but if they are all that a man’s work
demand of him, it is not likely that he will find his
work interesting, and it is pretty certain that such
satisfaction as his life may offer him will have to be
found outside working hours. 1 do not believe that
this is wholly unavoidable, even when the work is
in itself monotonous and uninteresting.

The first requisite is to restore to the %vorker some
of the feelings connected in the past with o^vnership.
Actual o^vnership by an individual worker is not
possible when machinery is involved, but there can
be Ways of securing the kind of pride associated with
the feeling that this is “my” work, or at any rate
our” work, where “our” refers to a group small
enough to know each other and have an active sense
of solidarity. This is not secured by nationalization,
which leaves managere and officials almost as remote
from the workers as they are under a capitalist regime.
What is needed is local small-scale democracy in all
mtemal affairs; foremen and managers should be
8i F

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

elected by those over whom they are to have
authority.

The impersonal and remote character of those in
authority over an industrial undertaking is fatal to
any proprietarial interest on the part of the ordinary
employee. Mr. Burnham’s “Managerial Revolution”
presents a far from cheerful picture of the possi-
bilities in the near future. If we wish to avoid the
drab world that he prophesies, the thing of first
importance is to democratize management. This
subject is dealt with admirably in Mr, James Gilles-
pie’s Free Expression in Jndust^^ and I cannot do better
than c^uote from him. He says;

“There is a sense of frustration when an individual

or a group has a serious problem and cannot get
to the top wth it. As in civil bureaucracy, so is it
in industrial bureaucracy — there are the same
delays, the reference to X or Y, the statement of
the rules and the same feeling of helplessness and
frustration. ‘If I could only get to the chief, he
would know, he would see. . . .’ This desire to get
to the top is very real and very important. The
monthly meeting of representatives of employee
groups is not without value, but it is not an
effective substitute for a face-to-facc relationship
between oumer and employee. It docs not help
this situation wlicn a shop steward, or an operator,
goes to the foreman with a problem and the fore-
man, shorn of authority, through transfer of
82

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

controls, can do nothing but pass it on to the
superintendent. He, in turn, passes it to the works
manager who puts it on the agenda for the next
meeting. Or the matter may be referred to the
welfare department, a big department in a big
company, and a substitute for the welfare or
personnel manager, himself a substitute for one
role of the managing director or o'vner, deals with
it or passes it on.

“In the large company there is more than a
sense of frustration; there is a peculiar meaning-
lessness about its operations to the member of the
rank and file. He knows little of the significance
of his job in the company as a whole. He does not
know who is the real boss; he frequently does
not know who is the General Manager, and, often
enough, he has never been spoken to by the head
Works Manager. The Sales Manager, the Cost
Manager, the Planning Manager, the Chief Welfare
Manager and many others, are just people with
good jobs and short hours. He has no part with
them, they do not belong to his group.”

Democracy, whetlier in politics or in industry, is
not a psychological reality so long as the government
or the management is regarded as “they,” a remote
body whicli goes its lordly way and which it is
natural to regard tvitli hostility — a hostility that is
impotent unless it takes the form of rebellion. In
industry', as Mr. Gillespie points out, very little bas
83

AUTlTOniTY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
been (lone in this direction, and management is,
with rare exceptions, frankly monarchical or oli-
garchic. This is an evil which, if left unchecked,
tends to increase with cverj' increase in the size of
organizations.

Ever since history began, the majority of mankind
have lived under a load of poverty and suffering and
cruelty, and have felt themselves impotent under the
sway of hostile or coldly impersonal powers. These
evils are no longer necessary to the existence of
civilization; they can be removed by the help of
modem science and modem teclinique, provided
these are used in a humane spirit and with an under-
standing of the springs of life and happiness. Without
such understanding, wc may inadvertently create a
new prison, just, perhaps, since none will be outside
it, but dreary and joyless and spiritually dead. How
such a disaster is to be averted, I shall consider in
my last tsvo lectures.

Postscript.

An interesting and painful example of the decay
of quality through modem machine methods is
afforded by the Scottish tsveed industry. Hand-^voven
tNveeds, universally acknowledged to be of super-
lative excellence, have long been produced in the
Highlands, the Hebrides and the Orkney and Shetland
Islands, but the competition of machine-woven tweeds
has hit the hand-weavers verj' hard, and the purchase
tax, according to debates in both Houses of Parlia-
84

TECHNIQUE AND HUMAN NATURE
lent, is giving them their coup Jc grace. The result
5 that those who can no longer make a living by
xercising their craft arc compelled to leave the
dands and Highlands to live in cities or even to
migrate.

Against the short-term economic gain of a purchase
ax which brings in from £1,000,000 to £1,^00,000
year must be placed long-term losses which are
lardly calculable.

First, there is the loss, added to those we have
Iready suffered in the blind and greedy heyday of
he Industrial Revolution, of one more local and
iraditional skill, which has brought to those who
jxerclsed it the joy of craftsmanship and a way of life
ivhich, though hard, gave pride and self-respect and
:he joy of achievement, through ingenuity and effort,
in circumstances of difficulty and nsk.

Secondly, there is the diminution in the intrinsic
excellence of the product, both aesthetic and utili-
tarian.

Thirdly, this murder of a local industry aggravates
the tendency to uncontrollable growth of cities,
which we are attempting in our national town
planning to avoid. Tlie independent weavers become
units in a vast, hideous and unhealthy human ant-hill.
Their economic security is no longer dependent on
their own skill and upon the forces of nature. It is
lost in a few large organizations, in which if one fails
all fail, and the causes of failure cannot be understood.

Two factors make this process — a microcosm of

AtmiORITY AND THr INDIVIDUAL

the Industrial Revolution— inexcusable at tins date.
On tlic one hand, unlike the early industrialists, svho
could not see the consequences of their own acts, we
know the resultant evils all too well. On the other
hand, these evils arc no longer necessary* for the
increase of production, or for the raising of the
material standards of living of the w’orkcr. Electricity
and motor-transport have made small units of in-
dustry not only economically permissible but even
desirable, for they obviate immense expenditure on
transportation and organization. Wlicrc a rural
industry still flourishes, it should be gradually
mechanized, but be left m situ and in small units.

In those parts of tlic world in which industrialism
is still young, tlic possibility of avoiding tiic horrors
we base experienced still exists. Jndb, for example,
is traditionally a laml of village communities. It
would be a tragedy if this traditional way of life with

all its evils were to be suddenly and violently ex- ,
changed for the greater evils of urban industrialism,/
as they would apply to people whose standard on
living is already pitifully low'. Gandhi, realizing these
dangers, attempted to put the clock back by reviving
hand-loom W'eaving throughout the continent. Ho
was half right, but it is folly to reject the advantages
that science gives us; instead they should be seized
with eagerness and applied to increase the material
wealth and, at the same time, to preserve those
simple privileges of pure air, of status in a small |
community, of pride in responsibility and work well!

TECiinJQUE AND HUMAN NATURE

done, which are rarely possible for the worker in a
large industrial tomi. The rivers of the Himalayas
should provide all the hydro-electric power that is
needed for the gradual mechanization of the village
industries of India and for immeasurable improvement
of physical well-being, without either the obvious
disaster of industrial slump or the more subtle loss
and degradation which results when age-old traditions
are too rudely broken.

LCCTURE FIVE

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE:
THEIR RESPECTIVE SPHERES

A HEALTHY and progressive society recjuires both'
central control and individual and group initiative:
without control there is anarchy, and without initia-j
tive there is stagnation. I want in this lecture to
arrive at some general principles as to what matters
should be controlled and what should be left to
private or ^emi-private initiative. Some of the quali-
ties that we should wish to find in a community are
in their essence static, while others are by their very
nature dynamic. Speaking veiy roughly, we may
expect the static qualities to be suitable for govern-
mental control, while the dynamic qualities should be
promoted by the initiative of individuals or groups.
But if such initiative is to be possible, and if it is
to be fruitful rather than destructive, it will need
to be fostered by appropriate institutions, and the
safeguarding of such institutions ivill have to be
one of the functions of government, ft is obvious
that in a state of anarchy there could not be
universities or scientific research or publication of
books, or even such simple things as seaside
holidays. In our complex world, there cannot
be fruitful initiative without government, but un-
88

CONTROL AND INlTrATIVT

fortunately there can be government without initia-
tive.

The primarj aims of government, I suggest, should
be three: security, justice, and conservation. These
iare things of the utmost importance to human happi-
mess, and they are things which only government can
fcring about. At the same time, no one of them is
^absolute; each may, in some circumstances, have to
, be sacrificed in some degree for the sake of a greater
I degree of some other good. I shall say something
about each in turn,

Security, in the sense of protection of life and
property, has always been recognized as one of the
primary purposes of the State. Many States, however,
while safeguarding law-abiding citizens against other
citizens, have not thought it necessary to protect
them against the State. WhereTer there is arrest by
administrative bf3^f, and punishment without due
process of law, private people have no security, how-
ever firmly the State may be established. And even
insistence on due process of law is insufficient,
unless the judges are independent of the executive.
This order of ideas was to the fore in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, under the slogan “liberty
of the subject” or “rights of man.” But the “liberty”
and the “rights” that were sought could only be
secured by the State, and then only if the State was
of the kind that is called “Liberal.” It is only in the
O.VL'L Vitise

secured.

89

AUTHORITY AVD TIIF INDIVIDUAL

To inhabitants of Western countries in the present
daj, a more interesting hind of security is security
against attacks by hostile States. Tliis is more inter-
esting because it has not been secured, and because
it becomes more important year by year as methods
of ^^•arfarc develop. Tliis kind of security will only
become possible wlien there is a single world
government with a monopoly of all the major
weapons of war. I sliall not enlarge upon this subject,
since it is somewhat remote from my theme. I will
only s«ay, >vith all possible emphasis, that unless and
until mankind have achicvetl the security of a single
government for the world, cteiything else of value,
of no matter what kind, ts precarious, and may at
any moment be destroyed by war.

Economic security has been one of the most im-
portant alms of modem British legislation. Insurance
against unemployment, sickness, and destitution in
old age, has removed from the lives of wage-earners
a great deal of painful uncertainty as to their future.
Medical security has been promoted by measures
u'hich have greatly increased the average length of
life and diminished the amount of illness. Altogether,
life in Western countries, apart from war, is very
much less dangerous than it ^vas in the eighteenth
century, and this change is mainly due to various
kinds of governmental control.

Security, though undoubtedly a good thing, may
be sought excessively and become a fetish. A secure
life is not necessarily a happy life; it may be rendered
90

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

dismal by boredom and monotony. Many people,
especially while they are young, ■welcome a spice of
dangerous adventure, and may even find relief in war
as an escape from humdrum safety. Security by itself
is a negative aim inspired by fear; a satisfactory life
must have a positive aim inspired by hope. This sort
of adventurous hope involves risk and therefore fear.
But fear deliberately chosen is not such an evil thing
as fear forced upon a man by outward circumstances.
We cannot therefore be content with security alone,
or imagine that it can bring the millennium.

And now as to justice:

Justice^ especially economic justice, has become, in
quite recent times, a governmental purpose. Justice
has come to be interpreted as equality, except where
exceptional merit is thought to deserve an excep-
tional but still moderate reward. Tohtical justice, i.e.
democracy, has been aimed at since the American
and French Revolutions, but economic justice is a
newer aim, and requires a much greater amount of
governmental control. It is held by Socialists, rightly,
in my opinion, to involve State ownership of key
industries and considerable regulation of foreign
trade. Opponents of Socialism may argue that eco-
nomic justice can be too dearly bought, but no one can
deny that, if it is to be achieved, a very large amount
of State control over industry and finance is essential.

There are, however, limits to economic justice
which are, at least tacitly, acknowledged by even the
most ardent of its Western advocates. For example,

AUTHORITY AND Tllf INDIVIDUAL
it is of the utmost importance to seek out ways of
approaching economic equality by improving the
position of the less fortunate parts of the world, not
only because there is an immense sum of unhappiness
to be relieved, but also because the world cannot be
stable or secure against great wars while glaring
inequalities persist. But an attempt to bring about
economic equality between Western nations and
South-east Asia, by any but gradual methods, would
drag the more prosperous nations doivn to the level
of tlie less prosperous, without any appreciable
advantage to the latter-

justice, like security, but to an even greater degree,
is a principle which is subject to limitations. There is
justice where all are equally poor as well as where all
are equally rich, but it would seem fruitless to make
the rich poorer if this %vas not going to make the
poor richer. The case against justice is even stronger
if, in the pursuit of equality, it is going to make even
the poor poorer than before. And this might well
happen if a general lowering of education and a
diminution of fruitful research were involved. If
there had not been economic injustice in Egjpt and
Babylon, the art of Avriting would never have been
invented. Tliere is, however, no necessi^, with modem
methods of production, to perpetuate economic in-
justice m industrially developed nations in order to
promote progress in the arts of civilization. There is
only a danger to be borne in mind, not, as in the
past, a technical impossibility-
9 *

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

1 come now to my third head, conservation.
CoDscTYation, like security and justice, demands
action by the State, I mean by “conservation” not
only the preservation of ancient monuments and
beauty-spots, the upkeep of roads and public utilities,
and so on. These Aings are done at present, except
in time of war. What I have chiefly in mind is the
preservation of the world’s natural resources. This is
a matter of enormous importance, to which very
little attention has been paid. During the past hun-
dred and fifty years mankind has used up the raw
materials of industry and the soil upon which agri-
culture depends, and this wasteful expenditure of
natural capital has proceeded with ever-increasing
velocity. In relation to industry, the most striking
example is oil. The amount of accessible oil in the
world is unknosvn, but is certainly not unlimited;
already the need for it has reached the point at
which there is a risk of its contributing to bringing
about a third world war. When oil is no longer
available in large quantities, a great deal will have to
be changed in our way of life. If we try to substitute
atomic energy, that will only result in exhaustion of
the available supplies of uranium and thorium. Indus-
try as it exists at present depends essentially upon the
expenditure of natural capital, and cannot long con-
tinue in its present prodigal fashion.

Even more serious, according to some authorities,
is the situation in regard to agriculture, as set forth
witli great vividness in Mr. Vogt’s Road to Survival.

93

AUTHORITY ASP THL ISOIVIUUAL

Except in a few favoured areas (of wliich Western
Europe is one), the prevailing methods of cultivating
the soil rapidly exhaust its fertility. The growth of
the Dust Bowl in America is the best kno^vn example
of a destructive process which is going on in most
parts of the world. As, meantime, the population
increases, a disastrous food shortage is inevitable
within the next fifty ^ears unless drastic steps are
taken. The necessary measuresare known to students
of agriculture, hut only governments can take them,
and then only if they are willing and able to face
unpopularity. Tiu's Is a problem which has received
far too little attention. It must be faced by anyone
who hopes for a stable world without internecine
wars— wars which, if they are to ease the food
shortage, must be far more destructive than those we
have already endured, for during both the world wars
the population of the world increased. This question
of a reform in agriculture is perhaps the most im-
portant that the governments of the near future will
have to face, except the prevention of war.

I have spoken of security, justice, and conserva-
tion as the most essential of governmental functions,
because these are things that only governments can
bring about. I have not meant to suggest that govern-
ments should have no other functions. But in the
main their functions in other spheres should be to
encourage non-govemmental initiative, and to create
opportunities for its exercise in beneficent ways.
There are anarchic and criminal forms of initiative

94

CONTROL AND INiTIATIVL

which cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.
There are other forms of initiative, such as that of
the well-established inventor, which cver)body re-
cognizes to be useful. But there is a large intermediate
class of innovators of whose activities it cannot be
kno^^'n in advance whether the effects will be good
or bad. It is particularly in relation to this uncertain
class that it is necessary to urge the desirability of
freedom to experiment, for this class includes all
that has been best in the history of human achieve-
ment.

Uniformity, whiclt is a natural result of State con-
trol, is desirable in some things and undesirable in
others. In Florence, in the days before Mussolini,
there was one rule of the roads m the town and the
opposite rule in the surrounding country. This kind
of diversity was inconvenient, but there were many
matters in ^vhich Fascism suppressed a desirable kind
of diversity. In matters of opinion it is a good thing
if there is vigorous discussion between different
schools of thought. In the mental world there is
everything to be said in favour of a struggle for
existence, leading, with luck, to a survival of the
fittest. But if there is to be mental competition,
there must be ways of limiting the means to be em-
ployed. The decision should not be by war, or by
assassination, or by imprisonment of those holding
certain opinions, or by preventing those holding
unpopular views from earning a living. Where
private enterprise prevails, or where there are many

95

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

small States, as in Renaissance Italy and eighteenth-
century Germany, these conditions are to some
extent fulfilled by rivalry beUvecn different possible
patrons. But when, as has tended to happen through-
out Europe, States become lai^e and private fortunes
small, traditional methods of securing intellectual
diversity fail. The only method that remains available
is for the State to hold the ring and establish some
sort of Queensberry rules by which the contest is to
be conducted.

Artists and writers are nowadays almost the only
people >vho may with luck exercise a powerful and
important initiative as individuals, and not in con-
nection with some group. While I lived in California,
there were uvo men who set to ^^'ork to inform the
world as to the condition of migrant labour in that
State. One, who was a novelist, dealt with the theme
in a novel; the other, who was a teacher in a State
university, dealt with it in a careful piece of academic
research. The novelist made a fortune; the teacher
was dismissed from his post, and suffered an imminent
risk of destitution.

But the initiative of the writer, though as yet it
survives, is threatened in various ways. If book-
production is in the hands of the State, as it is in
Russia, the State can decide what shall be published,
and, unless it delegates its power to some completely
non-partisan authority, there is a likelihood that no
books ^^iIl appear except such as are pleasing to
leading politicians. The same thing applies, of course,
96

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

to newspapers. In this sphere, uniformity would be a
disaster, but would be a very probable result of
unrestricted State socialism.

Men of science, as I pointed out in my third
lecture, could formerly work in isolation, as writers
still can; Cavendish and Faraday and Mendel de-
pended hardly at all upon institutions, and Darwin
only in so far as the government enabled him to
share the voyage of the Beagle. But this isolation is a
thing of the past. Most research requires expensive
apparatus ; some kinds require the financing of
expeditions to difficult regions. Without facilities
provided by a government or a university, few men
can achieve much in modem science. The conditions
which determine who is to have access to such
facilities are therefore of great importance. If only
those are eligible who are considered orthodox in
current controversies, scientific progress will soon;
cease, and will give \vay to a scholastic reign of^
authority such as stifled science throughout the
Middle Ages.

In politics, the association of personal initiative
with a group is obvious and essential. Usually two
groups are involved; the party and the electorate. If
you wish to carry some reform, you must first
persuade your party to adopt the reform, and then
persuade the electorate to adopt your party. You may,
of course, be able to operate directly upon the
Government, but this is seldom possible in a matter
that rouses much public interest. When it is not
57 G

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

possible, the initiative required involves so much
energy and time, and is so likely to end in failure,
that most people prefer to acquiesce in the status quo,
except to the extent of voting, once in five jears, for
some candidate ^vho promises reform.

In a highly organized world, personal initiative
connected with a group must be confined to a few
unless the group is small. If you arc a member of a
small committee you may reasonably hope to influ-
ence its decisions. In national politics, where you are
one of some twenty million voters, your influence is
infinitesimal unless you arc exceptional or occupy
an exceptional position. You have, it is true, a
tvventj’-miUionth share in the government of others,
but only a twenty-millionth share in tlie government
of yourself. You are therefore much more conscious
of being governed than of governing. The govern-
ment becomes in your thoughts a remote and largely
malevolent "they,” not a set of men whom you, in
concert with others who share your opinions, have
chosen to carry out your wishes. Your individual
feeling about politics, in these circumstances, is not
that intended to be brought about by democracy,
but much more nearly what it would be under a
dictatorship.

The sense of bold adventure, and of capacity to
bring about results that are felt to be important, can
only be restored if power can be delegated to small
groups in which the individual is not overwhelmed
by mere numbers. A considerable degree of central
98

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

control IS indispensable, if only for the reasons that
we considered at the beginning of this lecture. But
to the utmost extent compatible with this requisite,
there should be devolution of the powers of the
State to various kinds of bodies — geographical, in-
dustrial, cultural, according to their functions. The
powers of these bodies should be sufficient to make
them interesting, and to cause energetic men to find
satisfaction in influencing them. They would need, if
they were to fulfil their purpose, a considerable
measure of financial autonomy. Nothing is so damp-
ing and deadening to initiative as to have a carefully
thought out scheme vetoed by a central authority
which knows almost nothing about it and has no
sympathy with its objects. Yet this is what constantly
happens in Britain under our system of centralized
control. Something more elastic and less rigid is
needed if the best brains are not to be paralysed.
And it must be an essential feature of any wholesome
system that as much as possible of the power should
be in the hands of men who are interested in the
work that is to be done.

The problem of delimiting the powers of various
bodies will, of course, be one presenting many diffi-
culties. The general principle should be to lea\e to
smaller bodies all functions which do not prevent
the larger bodies from fulfilling their purpose. Con-
fining ourselves, for the moment, to geographical
bodies, there should be a hierarchy from the world
government to parish councils. The function of the

99

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

world goverment is to prevent war, and it should
have only such powers as are necessary to this end.
This involves a monopoly of armed force, a power to
sanction and revise treaties, and the right to give
decisions in disputes between States. But the world
government should not interfere with the internal
affairs of member States, except in so far as is neces-
sary to secure the observance of treaties. In like
manner the national government should leave as
much as possible to County Councils, and they in
turn to Borough and Parish Councils. A short-run
loss of efficiency may be expected in some respects,
but if the functions of subordinate bodies are made
sufficiently important able men will find satisfaction
in belonging to them, and the temporary loss of
efficiency will soon be more than made good.

At present local government is too generally re-
garded as the hobby of the well-to-do and the retired,
since as a rule only they have leisure to devote to it.
Because they are unable to participate, few young
and able men and women take much interest in the
affairs of their local community. If this is to be
remedied, local government must become a paid
career, for the same reasons as have led to the pay-
ment of Members of Parliament,

Whether an oiganization^js^g^qgraphica l or c ul-
;ura7 or ideological, it svill always ha>’e two sorts of
^lations, those to its owm niemb^7®hd "tIiose~to
:Hc" bulside world. The relations' of 'a^bd3y~’to its
osvn members should, as a rule, be left to the free

loo

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

decision of the members, so long as there is no in-
fringement of the law. Although the relations of a
body to its members should be decided by the
members, there are some principles which, if
democracy is to have any reality, it is to be hoped
that the members will bear in mind. Take, for
example, a large business. The attack upon capitalism
by Socialists has been concerned, perhaps too exclu-
sively, with questions of income rather than with
questions of power. When an industry is transferred
to the State by nationalization it may happen that
there is still just as much inequality of power as
there was in the days of private capitalism, the only
change being that the holders of power are now
officials, not o'vners. It is, of course, unavoidable
that in any large organization there should be execu-
tive officers who have more power than the rank and
file, but it is very desirable that such inequality of
power should be no greater than is absolutely neces-
sary, and that as much initiative as possible should be
distributed to all members of the organization. In
this connection a very interesting book is Mr. John
Spedan Lewis’s Partnership For All — A ^4.~jear Old
Experiment in Industrial Democra^. What makes the
•book interesting is that it is based upon a long and
extensive practical experience by a man who com-
bines public spirit with experimental boldness. On
the financial side he has made all the workers in his
enterprises partners who share in the profit, but, in
addition to this financial innovation, he has taken

lOl

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

pains to give to each employee a feeling that he
shares actively in the government of the whole enter-
prise, though 1 doubt whether, by his methods, it is
possible to go as far as we ought to go towards
democracy in industry. He has also developed a
technique for giving Important posts to the men
most capable of carrying on the work involved. It is
interesting to observe that he has arguments against
equality of remuneration, not only on the ground
that tliose who do difhcult work deserve better pay,
but, on the converse ground, that better pay is a
cause of better work. He says: “It is quite false to
imagine that ability and the will to use it are both of
them what mathematicians call, I believe, ‘constants'
and that all that varies is the income that the worker
happens to get in return. Not only your wll to do
your best but your actual ability depends very largely
upon what you are paid. Not only are people highly
paid because they arc able; they are also able be-
cause they are highly paid,"

This principle has a wider application than Mr.
Lewis gives it, and it applies not only to pay but also
to honour and status. I think, in fact, that the chief
value of an increase of salary lies in increase of status.

A scientific worker whose work is generally ac-
claimed as important will get the same stimulus
from recognition as a man in another field might get
from an increase of income. Tlie important thing, in
fact, is hopefulness and a certain kind of buoj’ancy,
a thing in which Europe has become very deficient as

102

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

a result of the two World Wars, Freedom of enter-
prise, in the old laissez^aire sense, is no longer to be
advocated, but it is of the utmost importance that
there should still be freedom of initiative, and that
able men should find scope for their ability.

This, however, is only one side of what is desir-
able in a large organization. The other thing that is
important is that those in control should not be
possessed of too absolute a power over the others.
For centuries reformers fought against the power of
kings, and then they set to work to fight against the
power of capitalists. Their victory in this second
contest will be fruitless if it merely results in re-
placing the power of the capitalists by the power of
the officials. Of course there are practical difficulties,
because officials must often take decisions without
waiting for the slow results of a democratic process,
but there should always be possibilities, on the one
hand, of deciding general lines of policy democrati-
cally, and, on the other hand, of criticizing the actions
of officials without fear of being penalized for so
doing. Since it is natural to energetic men to love
power, it may be assumed that officials in the great
majority of cases will wish to have more power than
they ought to have. There is, therefore, in eveiy*
large org.inization the same need of democratic
watclrfulness as tliere is in the political sphere.

The relations of an oi^nization to the outside
world are a different matter. They ought not to be
decided merely on grounds of power, that is to say,

103

AUTHORITY AND THF INDIVIDUAL

on the bargaining strength of the organization in
question, but should be referred to a neutral author-
ity whenever they cannot be settled by friendly
negotiation. To this principle there should be no
exception until we come to the world as a whole,
which, so far, has no external political relations. If
a Wellsian War of the Worlds were possible, we
should need an Inter-Planctar)' Authority.

Differences benveen nations, so long as they do
not lead to hostility, are by no means to be de-
plored, Living for a time in a foreign country makes
us aware of merits in which our own country is
deficient, and this is true whichever country our
o>vn may be. The same thing holds of differences
bet^veen different regions within one country, and
of the dilfering types produced by different pro-
fessions. Uniformity of character and uniformity of
culture are to be regretted. Biological evolution has
depended upon inborn differences between indivi-
duals or tribes, and cultural evolution depends upon
acquired differences. When these disappear, there is
no longer any material for selection. In the modem
world, there is a real danger of too great similarity
between one region and another in cultural respects.
One of the best ways of minimizing this evil is an
increase in the autonomy of different groups.

The general principle which, if I am right, should
govern the respective spheres of authority and
initiative, may be stated broadly in terms of the
different kinds of impulses that make up human
104

CONTROL AND INITIATIVE

nature. On the one hand, we have impulses to hold
what we possess, and (too often) to acquire what
others possess. On the other hand, we have creative
impulses, impulses to put something into the world
•Nvhich is not taken a\vay from anybody else. These
may take humble forms, such as cottage ^rdens, or
may represent the summit of human achievement, as
in Shakespeare and Newton. Broadly speaking, the
regularizing of possessive impulses and their control
by the law belong to the essential functions of govern-
ment, while the creative impulses, though govern-
ments may encourage them, should derive their
main influence from individual or group autonomy.
Material goods arc more a matter of possession
than goods that are mental. A man who eats a piece
of food prevents everyone else from eating it, but a
man who wires or enjoys a poem does not prevent
another man from witing or enjoying one just as
good or better. That is why, in regard to material
goods, justice is important, but in regard to mental
goods the thing that is needed is opportunity and an
environment that makes hope of achievement seem
rational. It is not great material rewards that stimu-
late men capable of creative work; few poets or
men of science have made fortunes or wished to do
so. Socrates was put to death by Authority, but he
remained completely placid in his last moments
because he had done his work. If he had been loaded
with honours but prevented from doing his work,
he would have felt that he had suffered a far severer

105

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

penalty. In a monolithic State, where Authority
controls all tlie means of publicity, a man of marked
originality is likely to suffer this worse fate; whether
or not he is subjected to legal penalties, he is unable
to make iiis ideas known. When this happens in a
community, it cannot any longer contribute any-
thing of value to the collective life of mankind.

The control of greedy or predatory impulses is
imperatively necessary, and therefore States, and
even a World State, arc needed for sun’ival. But we
cannot be content merely to be alive rather than
dead; we wish to live happily, \igorously, creatively.
For this the State can provide a part of the nccessarj*
conditions, but only if It docs not, in the pursuit of
security, stifle the hrgciy unreguhted impulses
which give life its savour and Its value. The individual
life still lus it due place, and must not be subj’cctcd
too completely to the control of vast organizations.
To guard against this danger is very necessary’ in the
world that modem technique has created.

AUTHORITY AND THF INDIVIDUAL

goyeniments, in thek-tum^jnustje ave as much sc ope
as possible to local authprities. In industry, it must
not be drought that all problems are solved when
there is nationalization. A large industry — e.g. rail-
ways — should have a large measure of self-govern-
ment; the relation of employees to the State in a
nationalized industry should not be a mere repro-
duction of their former relation to private employers, j
Everything concerned with opinion, such as news-
papers,"~b'<53ks7~afi'd' polRiSl^fopaganda," must Ije
lefrt(5^enuine competition, and carefully wfeguardcS
fronTgovemmental controF, 'as well as ffom'eve^
other form of monopoly. But the competition must
I^e cultural and intellectuair~n<are'CDnonTiCj-~andrstill
less military or by means of the crimlnal.law.

^ In cultural matters, diversity is a condition of
progress. Bodies that have a certain independence of
the State, such as universities and learned societies,
have great value in this respect. It is deplorable to
see, as in present-day Russia, men of science com-
pelled to subscribe to obscurantist nonsense at the
behest of scientifically ignorant politicians who are
able and willing to enforce tlicir ridiculous decisions
by the use of economic and police power. Such
pitiful spectacles can only be prevented by limiting
the activities of politicians to the sphere in which
^hey may be supposed competent. They should not
presume to decide what is good music, or good
biology, or good philosophy. 1 should not wish such
matters to be decided in this country by the personal
loS

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

taste of any Prime Minister, past, present, or future,
even if, by good luck, his taste were impeccable.

1 come now to the question of personal ethics, as
opposed to the question of social and political insti-
tutions. No man is wholly free, and no man is whojly
a slave, lo the extent to which a man has freedom,
he needs a personal morality to guide his conduct.
There are some who would say that a man need
only obey the accepted moral code of his community.
But I do not think any student of anthropology could
be content with this answer. Such practices as canni-
balism, human sacrifice, and head hunting have died
out as a result of moral protests against conventional
moral opinion. If a man seriously desires to live the
best life that is open to him, he must learn to be
critical of the tribal customs and tribal beliefs that
are generally accepted among his neighbours.

But in regard to departures, on conscientious
grounds, from what is thought right by the society
to which a man belongs, w e must distinguislyb ctween
the authority^.of- custom, and^the^authonty^of law.
Very 'much stronger grounds are needed to justify
an action which is illegal than to justify one which
only contravenes conventional morality. The reason
is that respect for law is an indispensable condition
for the existence of any tolerable social order. When
a man considers a certain law to be bad, he has a
right, and may ha\c a duty, to try to get it changed,
but it is only in rare cases that he does right to break
it. 1 do not deny tliat there are situations in which
109

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

law-breaking becomes a duty: it is a duty when
a man profoundly believes that it would be a sin to
obey. This covers the case of the conscientious
objector. Even if you are quite convinced that he is
mistaken, you cannot say that he ought not to act
as his conscience dictates. When legislators arc tvise,
they avoid, as far as possible, framing laws in such
a way as to compel conscientious men to choose
betNveen sin and what is le^lly a crime.

I think it must also be admitted tJut there are cases
in which revolution is justifiable. There y e cases
where the legal government is so bad that it is
worth while to overthrow it by force in spite of the
risk' of anarchy that is involved. Tliis risk is very reiJ.

[t is noteworthy that the most successful revolutions-—
:hat of England in 1688 and that of America in 1776 —
were carried out by men who were deeply imbued
witJr a respect for law. Where tliis is absent, revolu-
;ion is apt to lead to either anarchy or dictatorship.
Dbcdiencc to the law, therefo re, tho u gh not a n
aKo/ure'pfihcipIeT is "one" to whi^
be'attached, and to which c^eptions_shoul d onl y be
adniitted in rare cases after mature consideRiisn*

” Wc are led by such problems to a deep duality in
ethics, which, however perplexing, demands recogni-
tion.

Throughout recorded history, etliical beliefs have
had two very different sources, one pphtjea l, the
other concerned mth personal rcligiom^^d moral
convictions. In the Old Testament the two appear

no

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

ljuitc separately, one as tlie Law, the other as the
Prophets. In the Middle Ages there was the same
kind of distinction between the official morality in-
culcated by the hierarchy and the personal holiness
that was taught and practised by the great mystics.
This duality of personal and^ciyic inorali^, which
still persists, is one of which any adequate ethical
theory' must 'take account.' Without civic 'morality
communities' perish ; w .

survival has no value. » . ,*

morality^^e'equalJy necessary to a good world.

Ethics is not concerned sohly with duty to my
neighbour, however rightly such duty may be con-
ceived. The performance of public duty is not the
whole of what makes a good life ; tJicre is also the
pursuit of private excellence. For man, though
partly social, is not wholly so. He has thoughts and
feelings and impulses which may be wise or foolish,
noble or base, filled with love or inspired by hate.
And for the better among tJiese thougJits and feelings
and impulses, if his life is to be tolerable, there must
be scope. For although few men can be happy in
solitude, still fewer can be happy in a community
wliich allows no freedom of individual action.

Individual excellence, although a great part of it
consists in right behaviour towards other people, has
also another aspect. If you neglect your duties for
the sake of trivial amusement, you will have pangs
of conscience; but if you are tempted away for a
time by great music or a fine sunset, you wU return

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
with no sense of shanic and no feeling that you have
been wasting your time. It is dangerous to allow
politi cs_ and social duty to dominate too completely
our conception of what constitutes individual excel-
lence. What I am trying to convey, although it is not
dependent upon any theological belief, is in close
harmony with Christian ethics. Socrates and the
Apostles laid it down that vve ought to obey God
rather tlian man, and the Gospels enjoin love of God
as emphatically as Jove of our neighbours. All great
religious leaders, and also all great artists and in-
tellectual discoverers, have shown a sense of moral
compulsion to fulfil their creative impulses, and a
sense of moral exaltation when they have done so.
This emotion is the basis of what the Gospels call
duty to God, and is (I repeat) separable from theo-
logical belief. Duty to my neighbour, at any rate as
my neighbour conceives it, may not be the whole of
my duty. If I have a profound conscientious conviction
that I ought to act in a way that is condemned by
governmental authority, I ought to follow my
conviction. And conversely, society ought to allow
me freedom to follow my convictions except when
there are very powerful reasons for restraining me.

But it is not only acts inspired by a sense of duty
tliat should be free from excessive social pressure.

(\n artist or a scientific discoverer may be doing
-vhat is of most social utility, but he cannot do his
proper work from a sense of duty alone. He must
lave a spontaneous impulse to paint or to discover,

111

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

for, if not, his painting will be worthless and his
discoveries unimportant.

The sphere of individual action is not to be re-
garded as ethically inferior to that of social duty. On
the contrary, some of the best of human activities
are, at least in feeling, rather personal than social.
As I said in Lecture III, prophets, mystics, poets,
scientific discoverers, are men whose lives are \
dominated by a vision; they are essentially solitary
men. When their dominant impulse is strong, they
feel that they cannot obey authority if it runs counter
to what they profoundly believe to be good. Although,
on tliis account, they are often persecuted in their
own day, tliey are apt to be, of all men, those to
whom posterity pays the highest honour. It is such
men who put into the world the things that we most
value, not only in religion, in art, and in science,
but also in our way of feeling towards our neighbour,
for improvements in the sense of social obligation,
as in everything else, have been largely due to
solitary men whose dioughts and emotions were not
subject to the dominion of the herd.

If human life is not to become dusty and un-
interesting, it is important to realize that there are
things that have a value which is quite independent
of utility. What is useful is useful because it is a
means to something else, and the something else,
if it is not in turn merely a means, must be valued
for its OW'D sake, for otherwise tlie usefulness is
illusory.

113

H

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

To Strike the right balance between ends and
means is botli difficult and important. If you are
concerned to emphasize means, you may point out
that the difference between a civilized man and a
savage, beUveen an adult and a child, beuveen a man
and an animal, consists largely in a difierence as to
the weight attached to ends and means in conduct. A
civilized man insures his life, a savage does not; ar
adult brushes his teeth to prevent decay, a child does
not except under compulsion; men labour in the
fields to provide food for the winter, animals do not.
Forethought, which involves doing unpleasant tilings
now for the sake of pleasant things in the future, is
one of the most essential marks of mental develop;
ment. Since forethought is difficijr^nd req^cs
control of impulse, moralists stress its necessity, and
lay more stress on the virtue of present sacrifice than
on the pleasantness of the subsequent reward. You
must do right because it is right, and not because it
is the way to get to heaven. You must save because
all sensible people do, and not because you may
ultimately secure an income that will enable you to
enjoy life. And so on.

But the man who wishes to emphasize ends ratlicr
than means may advance contrary arguments ivith
equal truth. It is pathetic to see an elderly rich
business man, who from work and worry in )OUth
has become dyspeptic, so that he can eat onfy dry
toast and drink only water while his careless guests
feast; the joys of wealth, wlucli he had anticipated
H4

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
idle vagabonds, I was told, but to me they seemed
to be enjoying more of what makes life a boon and
not a curse than fell to the lot of my anxious hard-
working hosts. When I tried to explain this feeling,
however, I was met with a blank and total lack of
comprehension.

People do not always remember that politics,
economics, and social organization generally, belong
in the realm of means, not ends. Our political and
social thinking is prone to %vhat may be called the
“administrator’s fallacy,” by which I mean the habit
of looking upon a society as a systematic whole, of a
sort that is thought good if it is pleasant to contem-
plate as a model of order, a planned organism with
parts neatly dovetailed into each other. But a society
does not, at least should not, exist ttrsatis^^rt*
external survey^^but 'to^b'rjng' a goo'd‘~hFe t o the
Tndrviduals who impose it. it is ihTtKeTndividuals,
notm'thc'^vhole, that ultimate value is to be sought.

A good society is a means to a good life for those who
compose it, not something having a separate kind of
excellence on its own account.

When it is said that a nation is an organism, an
analogy is being used which may be dangerous if its
limitations are not recognized. Men and the higher
animals are organisms in a strict sense: whatever
good or evil befalls__a.man befalls him as'awngle
person, -not-this or that part of lum. If iTiave'tboch-
ache, or a pain'in my t6e7 it is" /that have the pain,
and it would not exist if no nerves connected the

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

part concerned with my brain. But when a farmer in
Herefordshire is caught in a blizzard, it is not the
government in London that feels cold. That is why
the individual man is the bearer of good and evil,
and not, on the one hand, any separate part of a man,
or on the other hand, any collection of men. To
believe that there can be good or evil in a collection
of human beings, over and above the good or evil
in the various individuals, is an error; moreover, it
is an error which leads straight to totalitarianism,
and is therefore dangerous.

There are some among philosophers and statesmen
who think that the State can have an excellence of
its own, and not merely as a means to the welfare of
the citizens. I cannot see any reason to agree with
this view. “The State” is an abstraction; it does not
feel pleasure or pain, It has no hopes or fears, and
what we think of as its purposes are really the
purposes of individuals who direct it. When we
think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of
“the State,” certain people who have more power
than falls to the share of most men. And so glorifica-
tion of ‘ ‘the State” turns out to be, in fact, glorification
of a governing minority. No d emocrat. canjolerate
such a fundamentally unjust theory.

^There is another ethical'theory, which to my mind
is also inadequate; it is that which might he called
the “biological” theory, though I should not wish to
assert that it is held by biologists. This view is
derived from a contemplation of evolution. The
1 17

AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

for existence is supposed to have gradually
led to more and more complex organisms, culmina-
ting (so far) in man. hi this view, survival is the
supreme end, or rather, survival of one's own species.
"Whatever increases the human population of the globe,
if this theory is right, is to count as ‘ ‘good, ’ ’ and what-
ever diminishes the population is to count as “bad.”/
I cannot see any justification for such a mechanical
and arithmetical outlook. It would be easy to find
a single acre containing more ants than there are
human beings in the whole world, but we do not
on that account acknowledge the superior excellence
of ants. And what humane person would prefer a
large population living in poverty and squalor to a
smaller population living happily with a sufficiency
of comfort?

It is true, of course, that survival is the necessary
condition for everything else, but it is only a condition
of what has value, and may have no value on its own
account. Survival, in the world that modern science
and technique have produced, demands a great deal
of government. But what is to give value to survival
must come mainly from sources that lie outside
government. The reconciling of these two opposite
requisites has been our problem in these discussions.

And now, gathering up the threads of our dis-
cussions, and remembering all the dangers of our
time, I ^vish to reiterate certain conclusions, and,
more particularly, to set forth the hopes which J
believe we have rational, grounds for entertaining.

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL FTIIICS

Betiveen those who care most for social cohesion
and those who primarily value individual initiative
there has been an age-long battle ever since the time
of the ancient Greeks. In every such perennial con-
troversy there is sure to be truth on both sides ; there
is not likely to be a clear-cut solution, but at best
one involving various adjustments and compromises.

Throughout history, as I suggested in my second
lecture, there has been a fluctuation betiveen periods
of excessive anarchy and periods of too strict govern-
mental control. In our day, except (as yet) in the
matter of world government, there has been too
much tendency towards authority, and too little care
for the presentation of initiative. Men in control of
vast organizations have tended to be too abstract in
their outlook, to foiget what actual human beings
are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than
systems to men.

The lack of spontaneity from which our highly
organized societies tend to suffer is connected with
excessive control over large areas by remote authori-
ties.

One of the advantages to be gained from decentrali-
zation is that it provides new opportunities for
hopefulness and for individual activities that embody
hopes. If our political thoughts are all concerned
with vast problems and dangers of world catastrophe,
it is easy to become despairing. Fear of war, fear of
revolution, fear of reaction, may obsess you according
to your temperament and ^ur party bias. Unless
up

AUTHORITY AND THF INDIVIDUAL
you are one of a very small number of powerful
individuals, you are likely to feel that you cannot do
much about these great issues. But in relation to
smaller problems — those of your town, or your
trade union, or the local branch of your political
party, for example — ^you can hope to have a successful
influence. This will engender a hopeful spirit, and a
hopeful spirit is what is most needed if a way is to be
found of dealing successfully tvith the largerproblems.
War and shortages and financial stringency have
caused almost universal fatigue, and have made
hopefulness seem shallow and insincere. Success, even
if, at first, it is on a small scale, is the best cure for
this mood of pessimistic weariness. And success, for
most people, means breaking up our problems, and
being free to concentrate on those that are not too
desperately large.

The world has become the victim of dogmatic
political creeds, of which, in our day, the most
powerful are capitalism and communism. I do not
believe that either, in a dogmatic and unmitigated
form, offers a cure for preventible evils. Capitalism
gives opportunity of initiative to a few ; communism
could (though it does not in fact) provide a servile
kind of security for all. But if people can rid them-
selves of the influence of unduly simple theories and
the strife that they engender, it will be possible, by
a wise use of scientific techni<jue, to provide both
opportunity for all and security for all. Unfortunately
our political theories are less intelligent than our

120

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

science, and we have not yet learnt how to make use
of our kno^vledge and our skill in the Avays that will
do most to make life happy and even glorious. It is
not only the experience and the fear of ■war that
oppresses mankind, though this is perhaps the
greatest of all the evils of our time. We are oppressed
also by the great impersonal forces that govern our
daily life, making us still slaves of circumstance
though no longer slaves in law. This need not be the
case. It has come about through the worship of false
gods. Energetic men have worshipped power rather
than simple happiness and friendliness; men of less
energy have acquiesced, or have been deceived by a
wrong diagnosis of the sources of sorrow.

Ever since mankind invented slavery, the powerful
have believed that their happiness could be achieved
by means that involved inflicting misery on others.
Gradually, with the growth of democracy, and with
the quite modem application of Christian ethics to
politics and economics, a better ideal than that of
the slave-holders has begun to prevail, and the claims
of justice are now acknowledged as they never were
at any former time. But in seeking justice by means
of elaborate systems we have been in danger of
forgetting that justice alone is not enough. Daily
joys, times of liberation from care, adventure, and
opportunity for creative activities, are at least as
important as justice in bringing about a life that men
can feel to be worth living. Monotony may be more
deadening than an alternation of delight and agony.

121

AUTHORITY ANB THE INDIVIDUAL

The men who think out administrative reforms and
schemes of social amelioration are for the most part
earnest men who are no longer young. Too often
they have forgotten that to most people not only
spontaneity but some kind of personal pride is
necessar)’ for happiness. The pride of a great con-
queror is not one that a well-regulated world can
allow, but the pride of the artist, of the discoverer,
of the man who has turned a wilderness into a
garden or has brought happiness where, but for him,
there would have been mheiy' — such pride is good,
and our social system should make it possible, not
only for the few, but for very many.

“nie instincts that long ago prompted the hunting
and fighting activities of our savage ancestors demand
an outlet; if they can find no other, they will turn
to hatred and thwarted malice. But there are outlets
for these very instincts that are not evil. For fighting
it is possible to substitute emulation and active
sport; for hunting, the joy of adventure and discovery
and creation. We must not ignore these instincts,
and we need not regret them; they are the source,
not only of what is bad, but of what is best in human
achievement. When security has been achieved, the
most important task for those who seek human
welfare will be to find for these ancient and powerful
instincts neither merely restraints nor the outlets
that make for destruction, but as many as possible of
the outlets that give joy and pride and splendour to
human life.

22

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

Throughout the^ages of human development men
have been subject to miseries of two kinds: those
imposed by external nature, and those that human
beings misguidedly inflicted upon each other. At
first, by far the worst evils were those that were due
to the environment. Man \vas a rare species, whose
survival was precarious. Without the agility of the
monkey, without any coating of fur, he had difficulty
in escaping from wild beasts, and in most parts of
the world could not endure the winter’s cold. He
had only Uvo biological advantages: the upright
posture freed his hands, and intelligence enabled him
to transmit experience. Gradually these two advan-
tages gave him supremacy. The numbers of the
human species increased beyond those of any other
large mammals. But nature could still assert her
power by means of flood and famine and pestilence,
and by exacting from the great majority of mankind
incessant toil in the securing of daily bread.

In our o>vn day our bondage to external nature is
fast diminishing, as a result of the growth of scientific
intelligence. Famines and pestilences still occur, but
we know better, year by year, what should be done
to prevent them. Hard work is still necessary, but
only because we are unwise: given peace and co-
operation, wc could subsist on a very moderate
amount of toil. With existing techniques, we can,
whenever we choose to exercise wisdom, be free of
many ancient forms of bondage to external nature.

But the evils that men inflict upon each other have
123

BERTRAND RUSSELL

HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS sro.

This book is addressed to the general reader as well as
to the professional philosopher. Beginning with a brief
survey of what science says we kno^v, it proceeds to
inquire how so much knowledge can be possible. It
appears that the enormous inferences which wc make
from our own experiences can only be \alid if the
universe has certain general characteristics, and an
attempt is made to state what these are. In the course
of the inquiry new theories arc developed as to the
relation of mind and matter, the problem of induction,
and the definition of “knowledge." Throughout, there is
a combination of two points of vie^v; that of phj-sical
science and astronomy, which does not mention per-
ception and tends to make man seem unimportant; and
that of the inquirer into our means of knowing, who
finds man at the centre of Ins investigation. The chief
purpose of the book is to clarify the relation of man to
his non-human environment, and to set forth the degree
to which the human mind can be a mirror of the vast
astronomical universe.

HISTORY OF WESTERN

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THE PRACTICE AND THEORY

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THE ATOMIC AGE o.

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